Press Release No. 16/150

Press Release: The Czech Republic Adheres to the International Monetary Fund’s Special Data Dissemination Standard Plus

April 4, 2016

The Czech Republic has completed the requirements for adherence to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) Plus — the highest tier of the Data Standards Initiatives. The Czech Republic’s SDDS Plus data are now posted on the Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board at http://dsbb.imf.org/Pages/SDDS/Home.aspx?sp=y.

“We are pleased to adhere to the SDDS Plus and improve the dissemination of economic and financial data for the Czech Republic. I believe this would further contribute to transparency of macroeconomic performance and policy analysis,” said the Minister of Finance of the Czech Republic Andrej Babiš.

"The Czech Statistical Office has been publishing data in line with the previous SDDS standard since 1998. I therefore welcome the fact that the Czech Republic kept improving its statistics and can now adhere to the IMF’s SDDS Plus. This standard applies to about forty major statistical indicators, available to users from all over the world, and for the compilation of which the Czech Statistical Office plays a key role," said Iva Ritschelova, the President of the Czech Statistical Office.

“By adhering to the SDDS Plus, the Czech Republic has joined the cluster of countries which provide transparent statistics on macroeconomic and financial stability and have thus strengthened their efforts to disseminate internationally comparable data,” said Lubomír Lízal, board member of the Czech National Bank responsible for overseeing the Statistics and Data Support Department.

Louis Marc Ducharme, Director of the IMF’s Statistics Department, welcomed the Czech Republic’s adherence and noted that “the dissemination of the new data sets under the SDDS Plus will be invaluable in fostering a deeper understanding and assessment of the performance of the Czech Republic’s financial sector, the cross-border-financial linkages, and the vulnerabilities of the economy to shocks.”

The SDDS Plus builds on the SDDS and its purpose is to assist statistically advanced countries with regard to the publication of comprehensive, timely, accessible, and reliable economic and financial data in an environment of continuing economic and financial integration.

The Data Standards Initiatives were established in the mid-1990s to enhance member countries’ data transparency and to promote the development of sound statistical systems. The need for data standards was highlighted by the financial crises of the mid-1990s and again in the late-2000s, when information deficiencies were seen to play a role. The Data Standards Initiatives also include the SDDS and the Enhanced General Data Dissemination System (e-GDDS).

Detailed information on the Data Standards Initiatives can be found on the Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board at www.dsbb.imf.org. For more information on SDDS Plus and its worldwide launch see also the IMF’s press release of 18 November 2014.