ECB publishes quality reports on euro area monetary, financial and balance of payments statistics

The European Central Bank (ECB) is today publishing two statistical reports entitled “Euro area monetary and financial statistics – 2008 quality report” and “Euro area balance of payments and international investment position statistics – 2008 quality report”.

The first report contains assessments of the quality of all euro area monetary and financial statistics and, in addition, a quantitative analysis of the reliability and the revisions to the balance sheet statistics of the monetary financial institutions sector. The main conclusions of this report are that the euro area monetary and financial statistics are of high quality and were published in a timely manner in 2008, as has been the case for the past ten years. The quantitative analysis shows that the revisions to the broad monetary aggregate M3 have, overall, been small. This report will, in future, be published on an annual basis.

The second report on euro area balance of payments and international investment position statistics contains an assessment of the quality of these euro area statistics on the basis of their methodological soundness, timeliness, revisions and consistency, among others. The report includes quantitative indicators and contains additional information on the recent work carried out by the Eurosystem to enhance the internal consistency of the euro area balance of payments. Both reports have been compiled in accordance with the ECB’s Statistics Quality Framework and can be downloaded from the ECB's website.