country could comply entirely with the SDDS. It was therefore necessary to provide for a two-year transition starting from the opening of subscription to the SDDS in April 1996 and ending on 31 December 1998. During this period, a country may subscribe to the SDDS even if its dissemination practices are not fully in line with the SDDS at the time. The transition period gives subscribers time to adjust their practices, according to a plan to be presented, to bring them in line with the standard.
The IMF proposed to make information on the subscribing countries and the metadata corresponding to the disseminated statistics available on the Internet through a dissemination standards bulletin board (http://dsbb.imf.org). Singapore was among the first 34 countries that subscribed to the SDDS when the electronic bulletin board was launched on 19 September 1996. With the subsequent addition of Thailand, 35 countries are presently listed on the bulletin board. Besides Singapore and Thailand, 5 other Asian economies are listed on the bulletin board. They are Hong Kong (China), Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia and Philippines. In addition to the metadata, the IMF has also worked with some countries to establish links from the bulletin board to the actual statistics. At present, ll countries have their data directly linked to the bulletin board. Of these, 3 are Asian economies, namely, Hong Kong (China), Japan and Singapore.
The establishment of the SDDS is recognition by the international community of the importance of accurate, reliable and timely statistics for the proper assessment and evaluation by market participants and policy analysts. Underlying the SDDS are the principles of openness, transparency and integrity, which are crucial for ensuring stability and order in the financial markets. The requirement for countries with significant access to international financial markets will contribute to stability and order, and therefore to sustainable development.
However, the stringency of the SDDS poses tremendous difficulties and challenges for subscribing countries. The transition period introduced by the IMF has enabled several of the Asian countries to subscribe to the SDDS even if they are unable to fully comply with the SDDS at the time of their subscription. The
