While the above measures will help member countries to strengthen their statistical systems and for the Fund to enhance the value of country-specific information system, it is essential to emphasize that the cooperative and voluntary nature of data provisioning as laid down under the Article needs to be preserved.
These are all elements that I believe help to strengthen the effectiveness of the inflationtargeting process. This framework has, of course, been tested in the past 18 months by the inflationary shocks the economy has faced from the fall in the value of the rand in the latter half of 2001 and the accompanying upwards pressure on food prices and fuel costs.