The Banco de Portugal collects and compiles monetary, financial, foreign exchange and balance of payments statistics, particularly within the scope of its cooperation with the European Central Bank (Article 13 of its Statute).
The Law on the National Statistical System (Law No 22/2008 of 13 May 2008) (in Portuguese only) acknowledges the Banco de Portugal as statistical authority and, as such, the Banco de Portugal is part of the National Statistical System, without prejudice to the guarantees of independence deriving from its participation in the European System of Central Banks. Within the scope of the National Statistical System, the Banco de Portugal releases plans and reports on its statistical activities.
Statistics compiled and produced by the Banco de Portugal are:
- used internally as part of its tasks, and particularly relevant for the preparation of research and forecasts for the Portuguese economy;
- reported to international organisations, in particular the European Central Bank, within the scope of its commitments in the area of statistics;
- disseminated free of charge as a public service via BPstat.
In BPstat, the Banco de Portugal publishes a wide range of statistics on the Portuguese economy, which can be consulted by domain (BPstat > Data domains), explored in a personalised manner (BPstat > Data > Data exploration) or by using predefined series and tables (BPstat > Data > Tree Exploration). The Bank also publishes several publications within its statistical function, most notably Statistical press releases and Central Balance Sheet Studies.
The Banco de Portugal has protocols in place with national institutions to ensure the quality of statistics on the Portuguese economy, including general government, Turismo de Portugal, I. P., and Statistics Portugal (Instituto Nacional de Estatística), I. P. and the Portuguese Insurance and Pension Funds Supervisory Authority (Autoridade de Supervisão de Seguros e Fundos de Pensões).