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out of the draft Manual by IMF and the UN Statistics Division in November 1999 to central banks and statistical
agencies worldwide.
The Task Force wishes to express its appreciation to the members of the expert group that was convened in July
2000 to conduct the final external technical review of the draft
Manual. The members of this group of statisticians,
trade negotiators, business representatives and data users commended the Task Force
for its work and made a
number of recommendations to be addressed before submission of the
Manual to the Statistical Commission for
approval. The group was chaired by Peter Pariag (Trinidad and Tobago) and its other members were: Mr.
Henderson, Ms. Nijhowne and David Usher (Canada); Quancheng Song (China); Wai-Yi Wang (Hong Kong,
China); François Renard (France); Ms. Steger (Germany); Akhilesh C. Kulshreshtha (India); Jung-Hoi Koo
(Republic of Korea); Alfonso Sales Duarte (Mexico); Adisa Timothy Odunlami (Nigeria); Lidia Troshina (Russian
Federation); Stefaans Walters (South Africa); Stuart Brown and Duncan McKenzie (United Kingdom); Bernard
Ascher, Peter D. Ehrenhaft, Harry Freeman and Mr. Whichard (United States of America); José Carlos Mattos and
Francisco Javier Prieto (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean); and Sherry M. Stephenson
(Organization of American States).
As a result of the extensive review process, in 2000 and early 2001 the Task Force prepared a further draft of the
Manual, under the coordination of Mr. Cave, who drew together substantive material drafted by Ms. Fitzgibbon,
Mr. Karsenty and Mr. Whichard, as well as important contributions and guidance from Ralf Becker (UN Statistics
Division), Ms. Butkeviciene, Ms. Chamie, Mr. Patterson, Mr. Roman and Ms. Steger.
OECD contributed
secretarial and administrative support, particularly by Joscelyn Magdeleine. Editorial support was financed by
IMF.
The present draft was submitted to the Statistical Commission at its thirty-second session, in March 2001. The
Statistical Commission approved the
Manual as an international manual and commended the Task Force for its
work.