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Press Release: Guatemala Formally Begins Participation in the IMF's General Data Dissemination System
December 23, 2004
Guatemala has begun participating in the International Monetary Fund's General Data Dissemination System (GDDS), marking a major 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 December 6, 2004.
Mr. Rob Edwards, Director of the IMF's Statistics Department, welcomed Guatemala's participation and stated, "Guatemala has reached a milestone that should allow the country to take full advantage of the GDDS as a framework for the development of national systems for the production and dissemination of economic, financial, and socio-demographic data."
The President of the Bank of Guatemala, Lizardo Arturo Sosa López, the Minister of Government Finance, María Antonieta Del Cid de Bonilla, and the Manager of the National Institute of Statistics, Jacobo Rey Sigfrido Lee Leiva, stated that their country was immersed in a whole process of developing and improving the economic and financial statistics with a view to making them consistent with international codes and standards, and in this context it was fitting to use the General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) as a reference framework. They added that this decision would enable economic agents to obtain information on the progress achieved in this area and could lead in the medium term to the availability of more reliable and timely statistics, which would in turn help them make appropriate resource allocation decisions.
The GDDS, 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 IMF's website shows Guatemala's plans for improvement in its statistics and the related technical assistance needs. This information provides the international community with a useful framework to develop and coordinate technical cooperation projects in Guatemala.
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