core sector communique

Inter-Agency Group on Economic and Financial Statistics Launches Enhanced G-20 Statistical Web Site, IMF announces

December 22, 2009

The Inter-Agency Group on Economic and Financial Statistics, which is chaired by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has launched a major upgrade of the Principal Global Indicators (PGI) web site, which covers economic and financial data of the Group of 20 (G-20) economies. The web site was first launched in April 2009 to help monitoring of economic and financial developments in systemically important countries.

Responding to user needs, the enhanced site was launched on December 21, 2009, and presents the rich collection of data offered on PGI in a more user-friendly fashion, most notably shifting the emphasis to cross-country indicators. Several new features have been introduced, including:

• Additional cross-country tables of key indicators with more data transformations to facilitate comparative analysis

• Longer runs of historical data via real-time access to the underlying PGI database

• Improved user interface with expandable navigation

• On-line access to metadata (information on the data)

• Visual display of key cross-country indicators using Data Mapper

The intuitive navigation tree on the left-hand side of the data table provides access to more than 40 cross-country tables that display data using comparable and harmonized units of measure, followed by the list of country-specific tables. Country-specific tables display data covering major economic sectors primarily expressed in national currency. The web site is publicly available at: http://www.principalglobalindicators.org.

The site is a joint undertaking of the Inter-Agency Group and is hosted by the IMF. The Inter-Agency Group intends to further develop the site, and is soliciting public feedback on the contents of the current data site. Please send comments to StatisticsQuery@imf.org.

Note to Editors:

The Inter-Agency Group on Economic and Financial Statistics was created at the end of 2008, and comprises representatives of the Bank for International Settlements, the European Central Bank, Eurostat, the IMF, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United Nations, and the World Bank.