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Quarterly Update on the Special Data Dissemination Standard—Third Quarter 2002 November 14, 2002 Observance Status At the end of the third quarter, 49 of 50 subscribers met the SDDS requirements for the coverage, periodicity, and timeliness of the data and for the dissemination of advance release calendars (Table 1).1 (A complete list of subscribers may be accessed on the Fund's DSBB at http://dsbb.imf.org/Applications/web/sddscountrylist/.) One SDDS subscriber—Iceland—was not in observance. Information on the status of this subscriber has been posted on the DSBB (see the What's New page). All 50 SDDS subscribers disclose data on international reserves and foreign currency liquidity in accordance with the reserves template.

Table 1: SDDS Indicators Indicators As of           September 30, 2001 As of       June 30, 2002 As of           September 30, 2002 Number of subscribers 49                50           50           Number of countries in observance1 47                49           49           Countries working with IMF Staff for possible subscription 8                10           11           Number of countries with NSDP websites 49                50           50           Number of countries with NSDPs hyperlinked to the DSBB 47                49           49           Number of countries with summary methodologies posted 46                49           49           Number of summary methodologies posted2 627                718           736           Subscribers disclosing data in accordance with the reserves template 48                50           50           Subscribers disseminating International Investment Position (IIP) data as presecribed3 25                40           50           1Observance of the externally monitorable elements of the SDDS, i.e., the coverage, periodicity, and timeliness of the data and the use of advance release calendars. Other elements of the SDDS dealing with the integrity and quality of the data are on a self-disclosure basis, with subscribers providing information on which users can make their own judgments. 2A list of the ten most recent Summary Methodology statements posted to the DSBB is available on the What's New page. 3The transition period for the IIP—data with annual periodicity and six months timeliness—ended on December 31, 2001. Accordingly, data for end year 2001 should have been disseminated no later than June 30, 2002. Monitoring Monitoring of the data and access dimensions of the SDDS is carried out against the release dates stated in subscribers' advance release calendars and metadata. In the third quarter, there was an improvement in the extent to which releases for monthly and quarterly data categories are disseminated on time compared with the same quarter of 2001 (Table 2). Compared with the previous quarter, a marginal improvement was recorded for most data categories; however, significant slippages in the on-time dissemination of data on central government operations occurred during the month of September. Ten subscribers delayed the dissemination of this data category, which negatively impacted the overall quarterly results. Table 2: Monitoring of Observance of the SDDS Percentage of Monthly and Quarterly Data Disseminated on Time1 (Quarterly Averages) Data Categories Q3/01 Q2/ 02 (R) Q3/ 02 Monthly and Quarterly Data 92.4 94.4 95.1 Monthly Data 93.9 93.6 94.7 Production index 96.1 94.3 97.2 Consumer prices 97.2 96.6 98.6 Producer prices 92.6 92.1 95.1 Central government operations 88.0 88.8 84.4 Analytical accounts of banking sector 91.6 92.3 95.9 Analytical accounts of central bank 94.5 95.3 94.0 Official reserves 95.9 93.3 94.0 Reserve template 96.6 98.0 98.7 Merchandise trade 92.4 92.0 94.6 Quarterly Data 91.0 95.1 95.5 National accounts 92.2 96.1 98.2 Employment 93.7 100.0 91.5 Unemployment 94.1 95.9 97.1 Wages and earnings 90.1 92.8 95.3 Central government debt 90.1 91.6 91.9 Balance of payments 91.9 94.5 98.8 1Number of data categories released on the day announced in the advance release calendar as a percentage of the total number of data categories to be released. (R) = Revised DSBB Usage A summary of the limited DSBB usage statistics available for the third quarter 2002 shows, inter alia, the ten most frequently accessed countries' metadata (Table 3). The table shows that the country pages for several emerging market economies are among the most frequently accessed on the DSBB. The decline in the number of hits in September 2002 can be attributed to the IMF's introduction of new firewall security systems. Also, the widespread and increasing use of "caching," whereby items are stored closer to the users of the DSBB so they can be retrieved more quickly, means there is no resulting or identified hit on the IMF server. As there are no agreed protocols for compiling website usage statistics, this section will no longer appear in future Quarterly Updates. Table 3: DSBB Usage Statistics—Number of Hits per Month   July 02 August 02 September 02 Total General Pages 201,199 200,842 121,341 Total Country Pages 326,477 297,949 175,034 of which: Top 10 countries including summary methodologies Malaysia 10,708 Malaysia 10,440 Malaysia 7,521 Mexico 9,133 Mexico 8,815 Mexico 6,694 Argentina 8,902 Japan 8,237 Argentina 6,413 Hong Kong SAR, China 8,664 Hong Kong SAR, China 8,192 Japan 6,044 Japan 8,249 Argentina 7,902 United States 5,788 United States 7,823 Italy 7,530 Italy 5,166 Indonesia 7,548 Indonesia 7,438 Hong Kong SAR, China 5,095 Italy 7,474 United States 7,328 Indonesia 4,636 South Africa 7,334 India 6,766 South Africa 4,186 Germany 6,893 Philippines 6,565 Singapore 4,126 Grand Total1 527,676 498,791 296,375 1Total monthly hits including GDDS; internal Fund access to DSBB sites is excluded. International Investment Position (IIP) and External Debt Statistics Following the end of the transition period for the International Investment Position (IIP) statistics in December 2001, Fund staff has been working with SDDS subscribers to ensure that the IIP data and metadata are disseminated according to the requirements of the Standard.2 As of the end of September, 47 subscribers disseminated IIP data that meet SDDS requirements, compared to 37 at the end of the previous quarter; the remaining 3 subscribers—Ireland, Korea and Malaysia—are using available flexibility options for timeliness, as allowed under the SDDS. During the third quarter, five subscribers—Germany, Hong Kong SAR China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Poland—began disseminating data for the external debt data category, as prescribed under the SDDS. The transition period for this data category expires on March 31, 2003. SDDS Outreach Seminar An SDDS Outreach Seminar will be conducted by the IMF Statistics Department at the Bank of Greece in Athens during October 24–25. This seminar will target prospective SDDS subscribers primarily from the Commonwealth of Independent States, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. The seminar aims to complement existing Fund staff efforts to enlarge SDDS subscription and will focus on a range of topics including the origins and evolution of the SDDS, day-to-day operations, and the impact of SDDS subscription. DSBB Enhancement Project In conjunction with ongoing work aimed at facilitating dissemination, metadata exchange, and the management of DSBB content, a query facility is being developed to provide users with the ability to interrogate SDDS and GDDS metadata. The facility will enable users to compare detailed information on statistical compilation and dissemination practices across countries and data categories and choose from a variety of output reporting formats. The project is currently in the final software development phase. Work has continued on providing new means by which SDDS subscribers can manage and maintain advance release calendar information. In addition, an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) based schema is being developed for SDDS metadata to permit the automated dissemination and exchange of metadata content independent of the computing platform employed. Finally, an eRoom facility is nearing deployment, which will promote collaborative discussion among SDDS coordinators and IMF staff on a broad range of topics relating to the SDDS and the Fund's data standards initiatives. 1Australia is availing itself of special transitional arrangements approved by the Executive Board under the Third Review for countries implementing accrual accounting for fiscal data. 2 The standard calls for the IIP to be compiled in accordance with the fifth edition of the IMF's Balance of Payments Manual and prescribes that assets and liabilities should be classified into direct investment; portfolio investment, showing a breakdown into equity and debt; other investment; and reserves (assets only).