Press Release No. 22/289

The United Kingdom Adheres to the IMF’s Special Data Dissemination Standard Plus

August 24, 2022

Washington, DC:

The United Kingdom has completed the requirements for adherence to the IMF’s Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) Plus—the highest tier of the Data Standards Initiatives. The UK’s SDDS Plus data are now accessible through the Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board .

Bert Kroese, Chief Statistician and Data Officer, and Director of the IMF’s Statistics Department, welcomed the UK’s adherence and noted that “as a global financial center, the dissemination of the new data sets under the SDDS Plus will be invaluable in fostering a deeper understanding and more informed assessments of the performance of the UK financial sector and the cross-border financial linkages.”

The SDDS Plus builds on the SDDS, and its purpose is to assist statistically advanced countries with the publication of comprehensive, timely, and reliable economic and financial data in an environment of continuing economic and financial integration. Examples of the data covered under this enhanced level of transparency are general government debt, financial soundness indicators, and sectoral balance sheets. In concluding the Tenth Review of the IMF Data Standards Initiatives in February 2022, the IMF Executive Board acknowledged the significant progress made by a number of SDDS countries to adhere to the SDDS Plus and encouraged more countries to make the transition.

The IMF Data Standards Initiatives were established in the mid-1990s to enhance member countries’ data transparency as a global public good and promote the development of sound statistical systems. The need for data dissemination standards was highlighted by the financial crises of the mid and late 1990s when information deficiencies were seen to play a role.

In addition to the SDDS Plus, the Data Standards Initiatives include the SDDS and the Enhanced General Data Dissemination System (e-GDDS). Detailed information on the Data Standards Initiatives can be found on the Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board at https://dsbb.imf.org.