The IMF Outreach Seminar on the Fund’s Data Standards Initiatives and Proposals was co-hosted by the BPS-Statistics Indonesia, Bank Indonesia, Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Indonesia and the International Monetary Fund Statistics Department on 12-14 September 2011 in Jakarta, Indonesia. Delegates from three OIC Member Countries including Indonesia, Kazakhstan, and Malaysia, together with China, Hong Kong SAR, India, Japan, Korea, Philippines, South Africa, and Thailand participated in the seminar. Dr. Savas Alpay, Director General, and Mr. Atilla Karaman, Researcher, represented the Centre thereat.

The Seminar aimed at discussing developments in the General Data Dissemination System (GDDS), Special Data Dissemination Standards (SDDS), as well as possible further modifications (SDDS Plus) that will be discussed by the IMF Executive Board during the Eight Review of the Fund's Data Standards Initiatives, which is scheduled for early 2012. The purpose of the seminar was to elicit the views of member countries before finalizing proposals for an Executive Board decision.

In his welcome address, Mr. Rusman Heriawan, Chief Statistician of the BPS-Statistics Indonesia, stated that the seminar presents a good opportunity for the delegates to meet, share knowledge and to learn more about the policies and practices in special data dissemination applied in countries and what challenges they are facing.

On the first day of the seminar, 12 September 2011, deliberations were made on the recent developments in the IMF’s data standards initiatives, overview and data categories for the SDDS Plus. The second day of the seminar, 13 September 2011, focused firstly on the discussions for the preliminary feedback on the SDDS Plus proposals including coverage, periodicity, timeliness, and transition periods of data categories; and secondly on the review of recent modifications to the SDDS and proposals for future enhancements. The country presentations on recent modifications to the SDDS, feedback on recent modifications to the GDDS/SDDS and proposals for future enhancements, and review of recent modifications to the GDDS and future developments were the themes of discussion on the last day of the Seminar.

Currently, there are two tiers under the IMF’s Data Standards Initiatives; i.e. the GDDS and SDDS. The number of countries subscribing to the GDDS is 101 (of which 41 of them are OIC Member Countries) and to the SDDS is 68 (of which 9 of them are OIC Member Countries).