In April 1997, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) accepted Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's (HKSAR) subscription to the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS). This was important in regard to Hong Kong's commitment to compile Balance of Payments (BoP) statistics in compliance with international standards.

To strengthen the SDDS in disseminating economic and financial data, the IMF had endorsed in March 2000 the new SDDS requirement which requires a subscribing economy to disseminate quarterly external debt (ED) statistics with a time lag of one quarter after the reference quarter. Under the new requirement, a subscribing economy is required to disseminate the first set of quarterly ED statistics for Q2 2003 by end-September 2003. Hong Kong's first set of ED statistics for reference quarter Q1 2002 will be published in June 2002, five quarters ahead of the end of the transition period as prescribed by the SDDS.

This article gives a brief account on the compilation methods and concepts of ED statistics in Hong Kong.