The IFRS Taxonomy 2008 is a complete translation of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) as published in the IFRS Bound Volume 2008 into XBRL, an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) language that is used to communicate information between businesses. The IFRS Taxonomy 2008 is published in the same languages as the IFRS Bound Volume 2008.

The specific characteristics of XBRL will provide users of the IFRS Taxonomy 2008 with easier filing, access to and comparison of financial data.

The IFRS Taxonomy 2008 represents a complete review of past taxonomies and is also the first taxonomy to undergo an extensive external review by an XBRL quality review team comprised of experts from the preparer community, securities regulators, central banks, financial institutions and software companies.

Interested parties are invited to access the near final version of the IFRS Taxonomy 2008 -- freely available on the IFRS XBRL Web site -- and send comments by May 30, 2008.

The final version is expected to be released at the end of June 2008 and will also be freely available.