Press Release No. 04/253

Press Release: The Republic of Tajikistan Formally Begins Participation in the IMF's General Data Dissemination System

November 29, 2004

The Republic of Tajikistan has begun participating in the International Monetary Fund's General Data Dissemination System (GDDS), marking an important step forward in the development of the country's statistical system. Comprehensive information on its statistical production and dissemination practices was published on the IMF's Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board (http://dsbb.imf.org/Applications/web/gdds/gddshome) on November 17, 2004.

Mr. Munim Kholikov, Chairman of State Committee on Statistics of the Republic of Tajikistan and the GDDS coordinator, stated: "Tajikistan recognizes that improving the quality of macroeconomic statistics is essential for economic and social policy development. In this connection, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, approved in June 2002, recognized the importance of relevant and reliable statistics for monitoring and assessing the strategy. To improve the quality of statistics, the State Statistical Committee is launching a national strategy for developing statistics. It contains the Multiannual Integrated Statistical Program, which adopts GDDS as a framework for statistical development. The President of the Republic of Tajikistan places profound attention to the improvement of statistics in Tajikistan. In his address to the Parliament he noted ` . . . On the entire territory of the Republic, statistical recording should be mandatory, complete, and with no omissions.' The occasion of Tajikistan's participation in GDDS marks a significant step for the State Committee on Statistics."

Mr. Robert Edwards, Director of IMF's Statistics Department, welcomed Tajikistan's initiative to launch a national strategy for developing statistics that adopts the GDDS as a core framework and observed: "I am pleased to note that Tajikistan has joined the countries already participating in the GDDS. This is an important step toward strengthening the country's statistical system. The commitment being made to achieve a sustainable improvement in the capacity of statistical systems is the cornerstone for developing sound data needed to monitor economic and social progress in the country."

The GDDS, which was established by the IMF in 1997, provides a framework to assist IMF member countries to develop their statistical systems with the objective of producing comprehensive and accurate statistics for policymaking and analysis. It addresses the quality and the dissemination of data. In addition, the DSBB for Tajikistan shows the country's plans for improvements in its statistics infrastructure and related technical assistance needs. This information provides the international community with a useful framework to develop and coordinate their technical cooperation projects in Tajikistan. Since its inception, 81 countries have participated in GDDS and have had their metadata published in the IMF's DSBB. Of this total, four countries—Armenia, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, and the Kyrgyz Republic—have graduated to the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS).