Quarterly Update on the SDDS Archive

Standards and Codes

New Subscriber

On December 22, 2004, the Republic of Belarus became the 58th subscriber to the International Monetary Fund's Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS), marking a major step forward in the development of the country's statistical system. The Republic of Belarus's authorities view subscription as the culmination of many initiatives on the statistical front. The Republic of Belarus is the fifth country of the Commonwealth of Independent States to subscribe to the SDDS.

Observance Status

As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2004, none of the 58 SDDS subscribers had been declared not in observance of the SDDS requirements for the coverage, periodicity, and timeliness of the data and for the dissemination of advance release calendars (ARCs) (Table 1). (The IMF's Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board (DSBB) disseminates a complete list of subscribers. At this writing, there are 60 subscribers to the SDDS. In January 2005, the SDDS added two new subscribers-the Arab Republic of Egypt and the Russian Federation-which the first quarterly review for 2005 will note under new subscribers.) Observance of SDDS metadata requirements improved with the increase in posted Summary Methodologies.

Table 1. SDDS Indicators
Indicators	As of December 31, 2003	As of September 30, 2004	As of December 31, 2004
Number of subscribers	55	57	58
Number of countries officially in observance1	54	57	58
Number of summary methodologies posted2	922	985	1059
1Observance of the requirements of the SDDS with respect to the coverage, periodicity, and timeliness of the data and the use of ARCs. Other elements of the SDDS dealing with the integrity and quality of the data are on a self-disclosure basis, with subscribers providing information on which users can make their own judgments. A subscriber experiencing difficulties in meeting SDDS requirements is not automatically in "non-observance" of the SDDS. When deviations from SDDS requirements occur, the IMF staff try to resolve the issue with the subscriber, and then, if necessary, through the Executive Director. If these efforts fail, the matter is brought to the attention of the subscriber's Governor for the Fund. A subscriber is officially declared in "non-observance" only when a note to that effect is posted on the DSBB. 2Out of a required total of 1,234 summary methodologies (21 data categories per subscriber, plus 16 subscribers that are currently disseminating the encouraged forward-looking indicators). All subscribers are disseminating summary methodologies for most data categories.

Monitoring of Data Releases

The IMF monitors the data and access dimensions of the SDDS for each subscriber by comparing the first appearance of new information on the NSDP against the last release date allowed by the SDDS timeliness requirements.

In the fourth quarter of 2004, there was a decline of 1.7 percentage points in the on time dissemination of monthly data categories compared with the same quarter in 2003 and an increase of 0.7 percentage point for quarterly data categories; the timeliness of central government operations declined by about 5 percentage points, central government debt by more than 6 percentage points, while external debt timeliness increased by about 7 percentage points and national accounts by more than 6 percentage points (Table 2).

Compared to the previous quarter, there was a decline of about one percentage point in the on-time dissemination of monthly data categories and almost no change for quarterly data categories; unemployment increased by about 5 percentage points and the balance of payments increased by about 4 percentage points, while central government debt declined by about 10 percentage points.

Annual data experienced an increase of almost 5 percentage points in the number of on time releases compared with the previous quarter, and an increase of more than 7 percentage points compared to the same quarter in 2004.

Table 2. Monitoring of Data Releases October 2003–December 2004 Percentage of data disseminated on the National Summary Data Page (NSDP) in accordance with the SDDS timeliness requirements (quarterly averages)
Data Categories		Q4/03	Q3/04	Q4/04
Monthly data		90.2	89.7	88.5
	Production index	91.3	93.8	90.1
	Consumer prices	93.5	92.9	94.6
	Producer prices	95.9	96.3	94.4
	Central government operations	84.1	78.9	79.0
	Analytical accounts of banking sector	89.5	92.3	85.2
	Analytical accounts of central bank	88.5	88.8	90.5
	Official reserve assets	88.0	87.1	85.3
	Reserves template	88.7	86.5	84.8
	Merchandise trade	92.3	91.1	92.3
Quarterly data		91.0	91.5	91.7
	National accounts	90.2	98.4	96.7
	Employment	96.9	91.2	93.6
	Unemployment	95.4	89.4	94.7
	Wages and earnings	92.5	93.0	94.2
	Central government debt	84.4	87.9	78.0
	Balance of payments	94.6	90.2	94.4
	External debt	82.9	90.6	90.3
Annual data		75.2	77.9	82.6
	General government operations	77.0	70.6	79.4
	International investment position	81.0	85.3	85.7
(R): revised N.A.: Not applicable