December 15, 2006
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Georgia began participating in the International Monetary Fund's General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) on December 15, 2006, marking a major step forward in the development of its statistical system. Comprehensive information on Georgia's statistical production and dissemination practices now appears on the IMF's Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board (DSBB) http://dsbb.imf.org/Applications/web/gdds/gddscountrycategorylist/?strcode=GEO
The Governor of the National Bank of Georgia, Mr. Roman Gotsiridze; the Deputy Minister of Finance, Mr. Lasha Gotsiridze; and the Chairman of the Department of Statistics of the Ministry of Economic Development of Georgia, Mr. Irakli Siradze made a joint statement: "The occasion of Georgia's participation in the GDDS marks a significant accomplishment of Georgia in its statistical development, jointly supported by our agencies. The IMF's GDDS provides an excellent framework for the continued improvement of our national statistical system. We are committed to making continued progress in terms of the quality, timeliness, and coverage of our statistical system so Georgia will subscribe to the IMF's Special Data Dissemination Standard in the near future."
Mr. Robert Edwards, Director of the IMF Statistics Department (STA), welcomed Georgia's GDDS participation and observed: "Georgia's participation in the GDDS is a milestone in the country's statistical development. Participation in the GDDS should allow Georgia to take full advantage of the framework to enhance its statistical capacity toward subscription to the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS)."
The GDDS was established by the IMF in 1997. It provides a framework to help countries to develop their statistical systems to produce comprehensive and accurate statistics for policymaking and analysis. Georgia brings the number of GDDS participants to 87. Six GDDS participants have used the GDDS framework to graduate to the SDDS, a more demanding dissemination standard also established by the IMF.
