Press Release No. 03/48

Press Release: The Republic of Kazakhstan Subscribes to the IMF's Special Data Dissemination Standard

April 4, 2003

On March 24, the Republic of Kazakhstan became the 53rd 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 Kazakhstani authorities view subscription as the culmination of many initiatives on the statistical front. The Republic of Kazakhstan is the second country of the Commonwealth of Independent States to subscribe to the SDDS. The Republic of Kazakhstan was among the first group of countries who participated in the IMF's General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) to have metadata posted to the IMF's Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board (DSBB), serving as an example for other countries in the region. On this occasion the Republic of Kazakhstan is the first country to move from the GDDS to SDDS subscription, again providing an example to be followed by GDDS participants.

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 metadata to the IMF about its data dissemination practices. This information is made publicly available on the IMF's DSBB http://dsbb.imf.org/Applications/web/dsbbhome/.

Since its independence in 1991, the Republic of Kazakhstan has made a significant effort to bring its official statistics in line with international standards. This effort has been supported by technical assistance from Asian Development Bank, IMF, World Bank, and development cooperation agencies of a number of countries.

The DSBB now provides comprehensive documentation in English on the Republic of Kazakhstan's statistical practices for SDDS data categories, hyperlinked to actual country data included in the mandatory National Summary Data Page maintained by the Republic of Kazakhstan's national statistical office.