China will subscribe to the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Chinese President Xi Jinping said at the 9th G20 Summit in Brisbane on Nov. 15, 2014. According to analysts, this means that China's economic data will become more transparent.

SDDS is an IMF standard to guide member countries in the public dissemination of national statistics. It was established in April 1996, and aims to enhance the availability of timely and comprehensive economic and financial data. Beijing's decision to adopt the standard has been hailed by senior officials and observers as a demonstrationf of China's commitment to "improving the dissemination of statistics". China is already a subscriber to the IMF's General Data Dissemination System (GDDS), and SDDS represents higher and tougher standards.

The SDDS, in taking a comprehensive view of the dissemination of economic and financial data, identifies four dimensions of data dissemination: coverage, periodicity, and timeliness of the data; access by the public; integrity of the disseminated data; and quality of the disseminated data. For each of these dimensions, the SDDS prescribes two to four monitorable elements--good practices that can be observed. China has decided to adopt standards relating to the frequency, timeliness and integrity of disseminated data that are stricter than the general standards.

Adopting the stricter standard shows that China has further increased its economic transparency and is making a new contribution to an open global economy. On the one hand, China can make better macro-economic decisions based on more accurate data; on the other hand, China needs to bring its economic statistics up to the highest international level to match its status as the world second biggest economy, and to help the international community better monitor the condition of global finance and the global economy. The Chinese economy comes closer to market standards by adopting the SDDS.

The article is edited and translated from 《中国经济数据将更加透明》; Source: Economic Daily; Author:Gao Weidong.