Mauritius Subscribes to the IMF's Special Data Dissemination Standard

PORT-LOUIS, Mauritius, February 29, 2012/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- Mauritius subscribed today to the International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS), bringing the number of subscribing countries to 70. Mauritius is the 11th country to graduate to the SDDS from the IMF's General Data Dissemination System (GDDS), which the country has participated in since September 21, 2000. Mauritius has benefitted from participation in the Department for International Development (DFID) Enhanced Data Dissemination Initiative, financed by the government of the United Kingdom, which aims, inter alia, to assist countries to graduate from the GDDS to the SDDS. Mauritius is the second Sub-Saharan African country to subscribe to the SDDS.

“The subscription to the SDDS of Mauritius represents a major step forward for official statistics in the country and for those who use these data,” said Ms. Adelheid Burgi-Schmelz, Director of the IMF's Statistics Department. “Subscription to the standards underscores the strong commitment to transparency in Mauritius, as well as a significant achievement in implementing internationally accepted best practices in statistics,” Ms. Burgi-Schmelz added.

The SDDS, established by the IMF in March 1996, is intended to guide members in the provision of their economic and financial data to the public. Subscription to the SDDS is expected to enhance the availability of timely and comprehensive statistics, thereby contributing to the pursuit of sound macroeconomic policies and the improved functioning of financial markets. The SDDS identifies four dimensions of data dissemination—the data coverage, periodicity, and timeliness; access by the public; the integrity of the disseminated data; and the quality of the disseminated data. Although subscription is voluntary, a subscribing member commits to observe the standard and to provide information (metadata) to the IMF about its data dissemination practices. This information is made publicly available on the IMF's Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board (DSBB).

The DSBB now provides comprehensive documentation in English on the statistical practices of Mauritius for SDDS data categories, hyperlinked to actual country data included in the mandatory National Summary Data Page, maintained by the Statistics Mauritius.