In April 1997, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) formally subscribed to the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) established by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which underpins the HKSAR's commitment to the international financial community for providing annual and quarterly Balance of Payments (BoP) accounts in compliance with international standards.

To further enhance transparency of financial markets, IMF has subsequently refined the SDDS requirements. The SDDS also requires subscribing economies to compile and disseminate annual statistics on International Investment Position (IIP), as from the reference year 2001, with a time lag of two quarters.

With the release of detailed BoP statistics in 2000, the compilation and dissemination of statistics on IIP is the next major development to be undertaken. This article gives a brief description of the development of IIP statistics.