Press Release No. 07/179

Press Release: Macao SAR Begins Participation in the IMF's General Data Dissemination System

August 10, 2007

Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (Macao SAR) began participating in the International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) today, marking a major step forward in the development of its statistical system. Comprehensive information on Macao SAR's statistical production and dissemination practices now appears on the IMF's Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board (DSBB) http://dsbb.imf.org/Applications/web/gdds/gddscountrycategorylist/?strcode=MAC.

To mark the occasion the following joint statement has been made by the Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Macao SAR, Anselmo Teng; the Director of the Finance Services Bureau of Macao SAR, Orieta Lau; and the Acting Director of the Statistics and Census Service, Vanessa Kong: "The occasion of Macao SAR's participation in the GDDS marks a significant accomplishment in its statistical development, jointly supported by our agencies. The IMF's GDDS provides an excellent framework for the continued improvement of our national statistical system. We are committed to making continued progress in terms of the quality, timeliness, and coverage of our statistical system."

Robert Edwards, Director of the IMF Statistics Department, welcomed Macao SAR's GDDS participation and observed: "Macao SAR's participation in the GDDS is a milestone in its statistical development. Participation in the GDDS should allow Macao SAR to take full advantage of the framework to enhance its statistical capacity toward subscription to the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS)."

The GDDS was established by the IMF in 1997. It provides a framework to help countries to develop their statistical systems to produce comprehensive and accurate statistics for policymaking and analysis. Macao SAR brings the number of GDDS participants to 89. Six GDDS participants have used the GDDS framework to graduate to the SDDS, a more demanding dissemination standard also established by the IMF.