The Role of Economic and Monetary Statistics Department at

Ending Fadjar Economic and Statistics Department, Bank Indonesia Jl. M.H. Thamrin 2 B Building !7th fl. , Indonesia [email protected]

Soekowardojo Economic and Statistics Department, Bank Indonesia Jl. M.H. Thamrin 2 B Building 14th fl. Jakarta, Indonesia [email protected]

1. General

The Economic and Monetary Statistics Department (EMS) is one of 22 departments in Bank Indonesia as a which has main tasks in (1) managing, and (2) developing the monetary and economic statistics. The term of “managing” has broad meanings, such as collecting, maintaining, reporting, and also disseminating the existing data or the information. The other task “developing” also has some meanings, as searching and creating some new information to improve the statistics itself or to support other departments in analyzing some issues. The coverage of the data which have been managed consist of monetary, external and real sector data and therefore the EMS organization has four main divisions; monetary statistics division, balance of payment statistics division, real sector and government finance division, as well as Economic and Monetary Data and Information Processing Division. The other supporting division is administration division which help another division in daily administrative works.

2. Data gathering

The commercial ’ financial statements are the most important source in constituting the supply. This information is sent to Bank Indonesia by monthly on-line commercial bank reporting system during the first week after the reference month. The number of commercial bank offices involved in the system are 2500 offices nation wide. The dispatching and processing are held in Electronic Processing Center Division of Bank Indonesia. The results together with base money data bring out money supply data and its differentiation which are then passed to Monetary Division as a main and first user. For the time being, the money supply data only covers commercial banks as an institution which is able to create demand deposits and credits. The extending coverage will take place in the near future by adding cash, deposits and credit of retail banks, insurance and postal services. This will make the reporting system more comprehensive. Other core information in the EMS department is the Indonesian balance of payment. In order to produce this BOP, the division has been doing some cooperation and surveys to fulfill the need of data. The estimation of capital movements is basically based on monthly investment approval report obtained from the Investment Coordinating Board. The trade balance data is gathered by compiling the export and import documents in cooperation with the Custom Agency. These documents accounting for one hundred thousands per month are collected weekly by the private service agent and then processed by Economic and Monetary Data and Information Processing Division before passed to BOP Division. The other services data are monthly estimated using some surveys of which tourism survey in cooperation with Ministry of Tourism and transfer payment survey which is solely done by BOP Division in some major countries. For the real sector data are mostly collected from other government and private institutions as Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Trade and Industry and associations as well. Yet there some prompt information collected by the Real Sector Division itself through quarterly and monthly surveys of which are business expectations and monthly production index. The all real sector data become some indicators regarding to the monetary policies so that its timely availability is required.

3. Data Dissemination

The data and information are disseminated into two groups, internal and external users. The board of directors and other departments are included in the first group. The data of base money and factors affecting are informed to the board and other department within monetary sector in weekly basis during the open market committee and special meeting. The other information as BOP and production developments as well as other special issues can be also informed when necessary in steering committee forum. The external users consist of national institutions, like banking institutions, ministries, research and educational institutions, bureau of statistics etc while international institutions cover IMF, ADB, World Bank, SEACEN etc. The ways of data dissemination mostly are in printed reports, such as Weekly Report, Monthly Indonesian Financial Statistics, Annual Report. The Weekly Report contains monetary data ranging from base money to money supply and factors affecting, domestic and international prices. The broader information are published in monthly report. Besides national productions, BOP and international developments, the report also covers money supply, credits, funds, as well as domestics and international interest rates. The number of items in this monthly IFS are more than one thousand. The other way to disseminate data and information are through electronic information system. Some information are published in intranet, MEIS (macro economic information system) and also internet. All these information are prepared and provided by Economic and Monetary Data and Information Processing Division. Intranet usually shows general information about monetary, external and real sector developments and can be retrieved by all departments while MEIS delivers more strategic and important information only to the Board. The last media, internet is the broadest one and not only highlight the contains but also have to meet other IMF standards since Indonesia committed to involve in the Special Data Dissemination Standard. In this program, the EMS department on behalf of Bank Indonesia acting as country coordinator.