News Brief

IMF Issues Consultation Paper on the Special Data Standard, Opens Website Section on General Data System

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has posted on the Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board (http://dsbb.imf.org) a Consultation Paper on modifying the data category for international reserves in the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS). The paper is intended to engage subscribers to the SDDS, other interested national authorities, and users of data in a consultative process on modifying the coverage of international reserves to include reserve-related liabilities and net commitments under financial derivative positions. This proposal is being made in response to requests from the IMF's Interim Committee and its Executive Board to strengthen this feature of the SDDS.

The SDDS was created in March 1996 to guide IMF members in the provision to the public of comprehensive, timely, accessible and reliable economic and financial statistics (see Press Release No. 96/47). At that time, the SDDS called for gross official reserves, denominated in U.S. dollars, to be included as a prescribed component, but with information about reserve-related liabilities only encouraged.

It is hoped to complete the consultation process by the end of June 1998. Separately, the Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board website has opened a special section on the General Data Dissemination System (GDDS), which provides a summary description of the GDDS, as well as a copy of the full text of the General System as approved by the IMF's Executive Board in December 1997.

Copies of the Consultation Paper, in Arabic, French, Russian, and Spanish are also available on request at the e-mail address (ddsd@imf.org).