TECHNICAL NoTEs ANd MANUALs

In 2001, the Fund adopted the Government Finance Statistics Manual of 2001 (GFSM 2001) as the new framework for collection and dissemination of government finance statistics. GFSM 2001 is based on the accrual accounting concept, in contrast with the previous cash accounting based framework (GFSM 1986). In November 2005, the IMF Executive Board reaffirmed its commitment to GFSM 2001 and agreed, in principle, that Fund staff should move in a phased way to present fiscal data using the GFSM 2001 framework in staff reports. The Board also concluded that the migration strategy should recognize a three-phase approach: presentation involving reclassification of existing data into GFSM 2001 format (short term), reporting of fiscal statistics (flows and stocks) using the GFSM 2001 framework (medium term); and full implementation of accrual reporting and the associated underlying systems (long term). TECHNICAL NoTEs ANd MANUALs