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

Saudi Arabia has subscribed to the International Monetary Fund’s Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS), marking a major step forward for official statistics in the country. Subscription to the SDDS is expected to enhance the country’s availability of timely and comprehensive statistics and contribute to the pursuit of sound macroeconomic policies. The SDDS was established by the IMF in March 1996 to guide members in the provision of economic and financial data to the public.

This is contained in a press statement by IMF media office, made available to OpenLife.

According to the statement, Saudi Arabia is the first SDDS subscriber among the G20 SDDS countries to adopt the SDMX technology in the National Summary Data Page (NSDP)— a one-stop online data publication portal—facilitating dissemination in both human- and machine-readable (SDMX) formats.

Mr. Louis Marc Ducharme, Chief Statistician and Data Officer, and Director of the Statistics Department of the IMF congratulated the authorities for this major milestone in the country’s statistical development. “The subscription to the SDDS underscores Saudi Arabia’s strong commitment to data transparency as well as to the adoption of international best practices in statistics,” Mr. Ducharme said.

“Saudi Arabia and the IMF have been working continuously to improve official statistics, and subscription to the SDDS is an important milestone ahead of Saudi Arabia G20 Presidency,” said Abdulaziz Alrasheed, the Saudi Assistant Minister for International Financial Affairs and Fiscal Policies. “The subscription to SDDS is fully in line with our Vision 2030 and objective of embracing transparency, with a view to enhance macroeconomic policies and ensure well-informed investment and policy decisions. Indeed, we are committed to further strengthening our statistical system and data transparency, in line with best practices.” he added.