The Statistics Department of the International Monetary Fund is pleased to make available to subscribers the Government Finance Statistics (GFS) database through an easy-to-use online service. GFS Online contains detailed annual statistical data on revenue, expense, transactions in assets and liabilities, and stocks of assets and liabilities of general government and its subsectors as reported by member countries. Subannual GFS are available through the online application relating to International Financial Statistics (IFS).

System Overview

The GFS Online system is based on the GFS CD-ROM Browser product, which contains time series data from 1990, and many of the functions are quite similar. GFS Online provides the same data coverage as the GFS Browser product. The data are presented in the world and country tables for all reporting countries in the framework of the Government Finance Statistics Manual 2001 (GFSM 2001).

The Country Table and Economic Concept Views provide access to similar concepts across countries while the Matrix View is available for enhanced data analysis.

Capabilities of GFS Online

The Web interface allows subscribers to browse the database, select series of interest, display the selected series in a spreadsheet format, and save the selected series for transfer to other software systems such as Microsoft Excel®.

GFS Online includes the following capabilities:

· browsing the directory tree,
· drilling down through the structure of the database,
· selecting either individual time series or groupings of time series within a table presentation,
· saving selected data and metadata in a variety of formats, including a spreadsheet, and
· saving and loading a query of selected time series.

The Statistics Department envisages that this product will be further developed and enhanced over time, and will be updated on a more frequent basis. Subscribers will be advised of further enhancements as they become available.