Press Release
28/1/2010

Jordan Subscribes to the IMF's Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS)

Jordan subscribed on 28/1/2010 to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS), bringing the number of subscribing countries to 67. Dr. Umayya Toukan, the Governor of the Central Bank of Jordan, pointed out that the subscription to the SDDS was achieved after Jordan's fulfillment of all the Standard requirements, reflecting the coordinated efforts and constructive cooperation between all related parties involved in the process of subscription, namely the Ministry of Finance and the Department of Statistics from one hand, and the IMF from the other.

Ms. Adelheid Burgi-Schmelz, Director of the IMF Statistics Department, welcomed the SDDS subscription of Jordan as a major step for official statistics and the data users of the country. Ms. Burgi-Schmelz, according to the press release issued by the IMF http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2010/pr1019.htm , also noted that SDDS subscription represents the strong commitment to transparency in Jordan, as well as a significant achievement in implementing internationally accepted best practices in statistics.

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) http://dsbb.imf.org/Applications/web/sddshome/.

The DSBB now provides comprehensive documentation in English on the statistical practices of Jordan for SDDS data categories, hyperlinked to actual country data included in the mandatory National Summary Data Page maintained by the Central Bank of Jordan http://www.cbj.gov.jo/uploads/NSDP_2010.HTML.