IMF hails Sri Lanka’s new statistics move as “major step forward”

Thursday, 5 November 2015 01:21 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The International Monetary Fund has hailed Sri Lanka’s adoption of the IMF’s Special Data Dissemination Standard as a “major step forward” which will enhance transparency.

The IMF in a statement yesterday confirmed that Sri Lanka has subscribed to the International Monetary Fund’s Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS), bringing the number of subscribing jurisdictions to 66.

Sri Lanka is the 15th country to graduate to the SDDS from the IMF’s General Data Dissemination System (GDDS), in which the country has participated since 14 July 2000.

Sri Lanka has benefitted from a project on the Improvement of Data Dissemination in the Asia and Pacific Region, financed by the government of Japan, which aims to assist countries to subscribe to the SDDS and promote data dissemination under the e-GDDS. Sri Lanka is the 12th jurisdiction in the Asia and Pacific region to subscribe to the SDDS.

“Sri Lanka’s subscription to the SDDS represents a major step forward for official statistics in the country and for data users,” said Louis Marc Ducharme, Director of the IMF’s Statistics Department. “The subscription to the standard underscores Sri Lanka’s strong commitment to transparency, as well as the adoption of internationally accepted best practices in statistics,” he added.

“Sri Lanka has been working with the IMF to improve the country’s macroeconomic statistics to internationally accepted levels. Sri Lanka’s subscription to the SDDS is another landmark in its collaboration with the IMF in improving quality, transparency and timeliness of our statistics,” said Arjuna Mahendran, Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. “We believe that this is essential for a better understanding of the Sri Lankan economy by investors, and we are committed to continue working with the IMF towards strengthening our statistical systems further,” he added.

The SDDS, established by the IMF in March 1996, is intended to guide members in the provision of economic and financial data to the public. Subscription to the SDDS enhances the availability of timely statistics, thereby contributing to sound macroeconomic policies and the more efficient functioning of financial markets.

The SDDS identifies four dimensions of data dissemination—data coverage, periodicity, and timeliness; access by the public; the integrity of the data; and data quality. Although voluntary, a subscribing member commits to observe the standard and to provide information (metadata) to the IMF about its data dissemination practices. This information is made publicly available on the IMF’s Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board (DSBB).

The DSBB now provides comprehensive documentation in English on the statistical practices of Sri Lanka for SDDS data categories, hyperlinked to country data included in the National Summary Data Page, maintained by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s SDDS information is available at http://dsbb.imf.org/Pages/SDDS/CtyCtgList.aspx?ctycode=LKA.

In May 2015, the GDDS was superseded by the Enhanced General Data Dissemination System (e-GDDS).