GDDS

Seychelles subscribed to the General Data Dissemination System (GDDS), an initiative of the IMF, in 2006 and officially became the 88th member on 18th December 2006.

The GDDS is a framework for the development of National Statistical Systems and its primary focus is on the improvement in the four dimensions of the system (data, quality, integrity and access by the public) and setting priorities for improvements in the short and medium term. This is a system and not a standard and so is not prescriptive on the time frames by which improvements in current practices must be completed.

The GDDS covers macroeconomic, financial and socio-demographic data.

Under this initiative, the Bureau in collaboration with other key institutions, namely the Central Bank of Seychelles (CBS), the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Employment has produced the required metadata as per the IMF template, for the following sectors, Real, Fiscal, Financial, External and Socio-Demographic. The metadata is posted on the IMFs Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board (DSBB), which can be found here.

One of the requirements as a GDDS subscriber is the creation of a National Summary Data Page (NSDP).
Data coverage under the NSDP includes:

1. Real Sector: (3 data categories)
   1. National Accounts
   2. Labour Market indicators (Employment and Earnings)
   3. Price Indices (CPI)
2. Fiscal Sector: (3 data categories)
   1. General Government or Public Sector Operations
   2. Central Government Operations
   3. Central Government Debt
3. Financial Sector: (3 data categories)
   1. Depository Corporations Survey
   2. Central Bank Survey
   3. Interest Rates
4. External Sector: (6 data categories)
   1. Balance of Payments
   2. International Reserves and Foreign Currency Liquidity
   3. Merchandise Trade
   4. International Investment Position (IIP – currently not available for Seychelles)
   5. External Debt
   6. Exchange Rates
5. Socio-Demographic Sector: (As an addendum)