OREANDA-NEWS. Japan has completed the requirements for adherence to the International Monetary Fund’s Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) Plus—the highest tier of the Data Standards Initiatives. Japan’s SDDS Plus data are now posted on the Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board.

“In order to have a more accurate grasp of the global economies and to prevent the next financial crises, it is critical to promote data transparency,” said Masatsugu Asakawa, Vice-Minister of Finance for International Affairs. “As an adherent to the SDDS Plus, we are firmly committed to preparing highly transparent and detailed economic and financial data. We also urge further international efforts toward more transparent and reliable statistical data collection, and strongly believe that the SDDS Plus will play a key role.”

Louis Marc Ducharme, Director of the IMF’s Statistics Department, welcomed Japan’s adherence and noted that “the dissemination of the new data under the SDDS Plus will be invaluable in fostering a deeper understanding and assessment of the performance of Japan’s financial sector, the cross-border-financial linkages, and the vulnerabilities of the economy to shocks.”

The SDDS Plus builds on the SDDS and its purpose is for statistically advanced countries to publish comprehensive, timely, accessible, and reliable economic and financial data in an environment of continuing economic and financial integration.

The Data Standards Initiatives were established in the mid-1990s to enhance member countries’ data transparency and to promote the development of sound statistical systems. The need for data standards was highlighted by the financial crises of the mid-1990s and again in the late-2000s, when information deficiencies were seen to play a role. The Data Standards Initiatives also include the SDDS and the Enhanced General Data Dissemination System (e-GDDS).