Russian Federation Subscribes to the IMF's SDDS

Russian Federation Subscribes to the IMF's Special Data Dissemination Standard

On January 31, 2005, the Russian Federation became the 60th subscriber to the International Monetary Fund's Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS).

Mr. Robert Edwards, Director of the IMF Statistics Department, welcomed Russia's subscription to the SDDS, noting the importance of this step for the users of Russia's official statistics worldwide. Mr. Edwards noted SDDS subscription represents a strong commitment to transparency and a milestone in implementing international best practices in statistics. He congratulates the Russian authorities on their achievement.

The SDDS, established by the IMF in March 1996, is intended to guide members in the provision of their economic and financial data to the public. Subscription to the SDDS is expected to enhance the availability of timely and comprehensive statistics and thereby contribute to the pursuit of sound macroeconomic policies and the improved functioning of financial markets. The SDDS identifies four dimensions of data dissemination—the data: coverage, periodicity, and timeliness; access by the public; the integrity of the disseminated data; and the quality of the disseminated data. Although subscription is 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 Russian Federation's statistical practices for SDDS data categories, hyperlinked to actual country data included in the mandatory National Summary Data Page, maintained by the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation.

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