Saudi Arabia Subscribes to the IMF’s Special Data Dissemination Standard

&NewLine;<p>Saudi Arabia has subscribed to the International Monetary&NewLine;Fund’s Special Data Dissemination Standard &lpar;SDDS&rpar;&comma; marking a major step forward&NewLine;for official statistics in the country&period; Subscription to the SDDS is expected to&NewLine;enhance the country’s availability of timely and comprehensive statistics and&NewLine;contribute to the pursuit of sound macroeconomic policies&period; The SDDS was established&NewLine;by the IMF in March 1996 to guide members in the provision of economic and&NewLine;financial data to the public&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>This is contained in a press statement by IMF media&NewLine;office&comma; made available to OpenLife&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>According to the statement&comma; Saudi Arabia is the first&NewLine;SDDS subscriber among the G20 SDDS countries to adopt the SDMX technology in&NewLine;the National Summary Data Page &lpar;NSDP&rpar;— a one-stop online data publication&NewLine;portal—facilitating dissemination in both human- and machine-readable &lpar;SDMX&rpar; formats&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Mr&period; Louis Marc Ducharme&comma; Chief Statistician and Data&NewLine;Officer&comma; and Director of the Statistics Department of the IMF congratulated the&NewLine;authorities for this major milestone in the country’s statistical development&period;&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;The subscription to the SDDS underscores Saudi Arabia’s strong commitment to&NewLine;data transparency as well as to the adoption of international best practices in&NewLine;statistics&comma;” Mr&period; Ducharme said&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Saudi Arabia and the IMF have been working continuously&NewLine;to improve official statistics&comma; and subscription to the SDDS is an important&NewLine;milestone ahead of Saudi Arabia G20 Presidency&comma;” said Abdulaziz Alrasheed&comma; the&NewLine;Saudi Assistant Minister for International Financial Affairs and Fiscal&NewLine;Policies&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;The subscription to SDDS is fully in line with our Vision 2030 and&NewLine;objective of embracing transparency&comma; with a view to enhance macroeconomic&NewLine;policies and ensure well-informed investment and policy decisions&period; Indeed&comma; we&NewLine;are committed to further strengthening our statistical system and data&NewLine;transparency&comma; in line with best practices&period;” he added&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;