all cases a collaborative framework to facilitate negotiations and co - operation between a sovereign debtor and its creditors, and also to overcome possible co - ordination problems between different creditor groups, seems to be envisaged. these general principles seem to me to have much in common with the themes underlying the ilg ’ s corporate workout principles. they also include several other suggestions to enhance creditor co - ordination, such as the inclusion of collective action clauses in bond contracts and, more widely, the use of ” creditor country clubs ” as a conduit for information exchanges. the key to all this is, in my view, the creditor co - ordination issue. a failure of creditor co - ordination in the sovereign context can lead to cancellation of longer - term investment projects and protracted exclusion from international capital markets. the private sector groups argue that, when a sovereign encounters financial difficulties likely to trigger a debt default, it should encourage a process of dialogue between the affected creditors and the sovereign. that should involve co - operation to facilitate a full exchange of information and analysis relating to the current financial situation and prospects of the sovereign. this will be easier if the country has already taken the necessary action to improve data availability and transparency and to meet relevant imf data standards and codes. there is a close parallel with the way in which corporate and financial sector restructurings are governed by independent reviews based on full exchanges of information on the corporate ’ s or bank ’ s financial position. in both cases, it is essential that those analysing the debtor ’ s financial position ( the imf in the sovereign context and the independent accountants in a corporate case ) are able to distinguish between different types of default. more effective monitoring should improve the discipline on the debtor and facilitate the extension of more lending by the private creditors in both cases. another area where sovereign debt workouts could borrow from corporate and financial restructurings is in possible recourse to a neutral mediator, charged with facilitating a co - operative creditor solution. in the sovereign context, one possible facilitator might be the imf. it would certainly have the resources and expertise to do the job, although one possible drawback is that the imf, unlike an arbiter in a corporate workout, will sometimes itself have claims on the debtor, in this case the sovereign. and this raises a separate issue of whether, or in what circumstances, the imf might provide financial support during a sovereign debt workout –

an important additional source of timely information for us. the uses of the survey data are varied. first, different indicators more often than not seem to tell different stories and we need to figure out which is the right one. for instance, at the current juncture, there is a marked discrepancy between the official data on the volume of retail spending, which points to considerable robustness this year – including whopping growth of 3. 6 % in may alone, though that was fully reversed in today ’ s release for june – and the distributive trades survey, which suggests significant weakness ( see chart 2 ). while the ons have suggested that the official data are likely to be better at picking up small retailers and unconventional shopping channels, such as internet purchases, the conformity of the picture given by the distributive trades survey with other potential indicators of spending, such as consumer confidence and the agents reports, have led us to place less weight on the official data on retail spending for the present. the surveys will not always provide the best coincident guide, however. for instance, during the 1999 - 2002 period, the official data suggested greater swings in manufacturing output growth than did the industrial trends survey ( see chart 3 ). now, during this period, we know that there was a rapid expansion in ict - related activities, followed by a sharp contraction. the simple balance of “ ups ” over “ downs ” in the industrial trends survey could therefore be expected to have failed to reflect adequately the sharp movements in that sub - sector ’ s activity. so, for this period, the official data probably gave a better picture of what was going on. a second use of surveys is in the application of forward - looking questions to form a view of the near - term outlook. in that regard, questions on business and consumer confidence, and on the trend in orders and backlogs, can give some indication of likely trends in output and spending. the surveys are also useful in forming an assessment of the prospects for capital spending, as this is an area where statistical models are particularly poor – and i should know, having spent some of my formative years at the treasury unsuccessfully trying to build econometric models to predict investment! both the cbi and bcc surveys collect information on investment intentions, and it is also something we ask our agents to take a view on, based on their contact interviews ( see chart 4 ). we look closely at this information when assessing