Singapore and Washington, DC, September 15, 2006 — Today, the Institute of International Finance (IIF) is publishing a new report Investor Relations: An Approach to Effective Communication and Enhanced Transparency, which provides detailed analysis of investor relations and data transparency practices by the most active emerging market borrowing countries.

The new assessments by the IIF find that in terms of overall investor relations and data transparency best practices Brazil, followed by Korea, are the best performing countries in a group of 32 emerging market countries. The first in this new series of reports was published in December 2005.

IIF Managing Director Charles Dallara said, "Today's report aims to help authorities identify those aspects of their investor relations and data transparency practices that could benefit from strengthening. It offers investors a comprehensive comparative evaluation of communication and data dissemination practices for the countries that were assessed. The IIF investor relations and data practice assessments support broader initiatives on crisis prevention and crisis resolution, most notably the Principles for Stable Capital Flows and Fair Debt Restructuring in Emerging Markets."

The IIF, the global association of financial institutions with more than 355 members operating across the world, will publish regular updated assessments of country investor relations and data transparency practices on a semi-annual basis. In addition, particular innovations in terms of investor relations or data transparency practices will be posted to the IIF website in real time. The IIF has developed an index to rank the countries in terms of their performance relative to a set of best practices standards.

The assessments include information on the availability, timeliness, and periodicity of data in key areas related to central government operations, central government debt, and external debt (information on Belize and Hungary has been included for the first time in the update report).
Today's report noted that due to continuing improvements by the investor relations office in the Brazilian Central Bank and actions by the Brazilian National Treasury, Brazil is the only country that satisfies all of the IIF's investor relations' best practices criteria on a prioritized basis. In second place in the rankings is Korea, which has also further refined its investor relations practices in recent months.

Notable improvements in investor relations practices have occurred over the past year in the Asia-Pacific region, not only in Korea, but also in Indonesia, which launched a program of its own in February. In Latin America, with the establishment of an investor relations program in Peru in April, four Latin American countries now emerge among the top performers in terms of best practices in the group of 32 countries assessed, with Brazil followed by Mexico, Peru and Chile.

Mr. Dallara added, "The new assessments show that a wide gap continues to remain between the best performers and the majority of countries. In general with respect to investor relations and transparency, countries continue to focus primarily on data dissemination, scoring lower with respect to criteria relating to feedback and communication channels, such as active use of investor contact lists, investor conference calls, non-deal roadshows, and investor feedback for use in policy decisions. Countries such as Russia, Ecuador and China are among those where the scope for improvement is substantial."