92001E0139

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0139/01

by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Commission

(31 January 2001)

Subject: Timeliness of economic statistics

Given that the statistics for GDP, employment and productivity for the euro area are taken into account largely by the foreign exchange market when assessing the value of the euro against the dollar and the yen, and given that they must therefore compete with the figures produced for other areas, will the Commission please state the frequency and actual time-lag between the period concerned and publication of national output, employment, productivity and earnings figures in the United States of America, Canada and Japan?

Answer given by Mr Solbes Mira on behalf of the Commission

(3 April 2001)

A table that gives the release dates for the United States of America, Japan and Canada for the key statistics mentioned in the question is sending direct to the Honourable Member and to Parliament's Secretariat.

The Commission, in full awareness of the attention devoted by foreign exchange markets to statistics such as the gross domestic product (GDP), employment or productivity, is concerned about the fact that euro area statistics are, in most cases, released later than in the United States, Japan and Canada. Therefore the Commission and the European Central Bank have recently jointly proposed an action plan, which was subsequently approved by the Ecofin Council. The implementation of this plan should lead to improvements in the data collection and statistics compilation in the National Statistical Institutes of the Member States as well as in the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat). These improvements will make a faster release of these key statistics possible.