Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS)

The Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) serves to guide countries that have, or that might seek, access to international capital markets in the dissemination of economic and financial data to the public.

Countries subscribing to the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) undertake to follow good statistical practices in four dimensions: (1) data: coverage, periodicity and timeliness of the data disseminated; (2) access by the public: dissemination of advance release calendars, and simultaneous release of the data; (3) integrity: disclosing information on laws governing the compilation and release of the data, access to the data by other government officials prior to release, ministerial commentary accompanying the release of the data, revision policy, and advance notice of major changes in methodology; and (4) quality: the dissemination of documentation on methodology and sources, and dissemination of detailed and other data that support statistical cross-checks.

Under the SDDS, data dissemination practices are prescribed for 20 data categories covering the real, fiscal, financial and external sectors, as well as population, and are posted on the IMF's Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board (DSBB; http://dsbb.imf.org). To date, there are 69 subscribers to the SDDS. Subscribers are required to establish an Internet site containing the actual data disseminated under the SDDS, called a National Summary Data Page (NSDP) that is hyperlinked to the DSBB. Full details on subscribers' metadata are posted on the DSBB.

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