methodological questions, to identify difficulties for the implementation of some of the international standards, and to review the consistency of certain recommendations in efforts toward harmonization of the FDI statistics. The 2001 SIMSDI Update 1.5 In October 2000, the IMF’s BOP Committee agreed that the information obtained from the 1997 SIMSDI should be updated. Similarly, in November 2000, the OECD Secretariat was asked to take the necessary steps to update the information for its member countries. The relevant committees of both organizations agreed that a new
, reaching a level of about $5 billion in 1987. Unfortunately, during this same decade Arab-OPEC aid, which reached the extraordinary level of nearly $14 billion (at 1987 prices and exchange rates) in 1975 and which ran over $10 billion until 1981, has since come down to slightly above $2 billion in 1988 (though still at a high ratio of ODA to GNP). The net result of these opposing trends has been that world aid during the 1980s remained about the same in real terms. For the future, the OECD Secretariat sees continued modest increases in ODA from DAC members in real
with a great many reservations on certain codes, but also with the expectation that over time these reservations will be removed. The question really is how high the barrier to membership should be set. This question is an interesting intellectual issue that will be answered not by the OECD Secretariat but through negotiations between the PIT countries and the OECD member countries. How rapidly and to what degree should these countries be asked to liberalize their capital accounts and various areas of invisible transactions, such as insurance and banking? I think