IMF to assist Philippines to improve GFS

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A series of meetings with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Mission on Government Finance Statistics (GFS) were held at the DOF on July 11-13, 2012. The consecutive meetings aimed to enhance fiscal reporting in the public sector by getting background information from relevant data generating agencies

As IMF representative, Mr. Rif Basanti, sorted information from the following offices: the Fiscal Policy and Planning Office (FPPO-DOF) for national government (NG) Debt and Cash operations; Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) for Local Government Units (LGU) fiscal reports; Corporate Affairs Group (CAG-DOF) for Corporate Government Sector Statistics; Commission on Audit (COA) for NG accounting data; and the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) for the national accounts.

The objective of the mission is to assist FPPO-DOF in coming up with a consolidation strategy based on the readily available data for general government units.

Another follow-up mission was held from November 26 to December 11, 2012 where Mr. Joe Cavanagh, an IMF consultant on Government Finance Statistics, met with concerned agencies and discussed the reporting framework. At the end of the mission, Mr. Cavanagh made recommendations on systems format and on how to improve the reporting in the country.

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Mr. Joe Cavanagh presents recommendations on fiscal reporting.

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Participants from DOF,COA and BTr interact during the last day of the technical meeting.

The IMF committed to give technical assistance to the Philippines in order to enhance the country’s fiscal reporting. It is also committed to provide timely and reliable data to both public and private sector.