The Tribune

The Bahamas has enhanced the provision of key national economic and financial data by consolidating it into one website location in accordance with the IMF’s advice.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Central Bank of The Bahamas, in simultaneous statements on Friday, said this nation had implemented the former’s recommendations on the Enhanced General Data Dissemination System (e-GDDS). This will serve as a facility for publishing critical data through the National Summary Data Page (NSDP).

The IMF said the NSDP, in turn, “aims to serve as a one-stop publication vehicle for essential macroeconomic data on national accounts, government operations and debt, monetary and financial sector, and the balance of payments”.

It added that the initiative was intended to boost transparency surrounding key economic data, and encourage development among the Government’s key data and statistical-generating agencies.

“These data will be disseminated in both human and machine-readable formats,” the IMF said of The Bahamas’ e-GDDS. “The e-GDDS was established by the IMF’s Executive Board in May 2015 to support improved data transparency, encourage statistical development, and help create synergies between data dissemination and surveillance.”

The NSDP is posted on the Central Bank of the Bahamas’ website, using the Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange (SDMX), and is also accessible via the IMF’s Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board. The NSDP page contains links to statistics published by official data producers such as the Central Bank of The Bahamas, the Ministry of Finance and the Department of Statistics.

“The NSDP will provide national policymakers, and domestic and international stakeholders, including investors and rating agencies, with easy access to information that the IMF’s Executive Board has identified as critical for monitoring economic conditions and policies,” the IMF said.

“Making this information easily accessible in both human and machine-readable formats will allow all users to have simultaneous access to timely data, and will bring greater data transparency.”

The Central Bank, in its own statement, said the NSDP launch had resulted from collaboration between the Government’s key agencies, and would allow the public to “obtain key reports and data on the economy from one location”.

It added: “With the launch of this portal, The Bahamas joins a list of over 40 countries who have provided key economic and financial information in this enhanced format.”

John Rolle, the Central Bank’s governor, said: “The Central Bank is pleased to announce that it has launched The Bahamas’ official e-GDDS portal. This website, which represents the result of a collaboration between various agencies, allows members of the public to obtain key reports and data on the economy from one location, thereby improving data transparency and governance. We thank the IMF for their assistance with this initiative and look forward to their continued co-operation.”

Louis Marc Ducharme, chief statistician and data officer, and director of the IMF’s statistics department, added: “I congratulate the authorities of The Bahamas for the launch of the NSDP, an important step forward in data dissemination. I am confident that The Bahamas will benefit from using the e-GDDS as a framework for further development of its statistical system.”