Statistics Legislation in Search of True Data

Mr Nguyen Bich Lam, Acting General Director of General Statistics Office (GSO) under the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), said the current Law on Statistics has revealed a lot of shortcomings that need amending to fit the economic and social reality. Basic indicators taken into account in compiling the revised Law on Statistics is the enhanced quality of statistical data built on these factors: Accuracy, entirety, punctuality and transparency.

 

However, what statisticians always concern is the low quality of statistics although the sector has applied many measures like adopting advanced statistical methods, perfecting data processing, applying information technology to data processing and storing because statistics require close coordination of related sectors in data provision (individuals and collectives), information production (statistics sector) and information use and dissemination (information users). Thus, if the Law on Statistics of 2003 includes eight chapters and 42 articles, the revised one has nine chapters and 74 articles. Remarkable additional contents of the new law focus on the following points.

 

The scope of the draft revised law is expanded to all entities subjected province statistical work and statistical information use in the territory of Vietnam. This means that the draft amended law will regulate statistical activity and State and non-State statistical information use. As for non-State statistics agencies and individuals, the statistical activity will operate according to regulations on purposes, scopes, principles and requirements as well as fields of prohibition of information collection and statistical information dissemination (including politics, defence and security fields).

 

According to the blueprint law, the statistical information system will comprise the national statistical information system, ministerial and sectoral statistical information system, provincial statistical information system, district statistical information system. Relations among statistical information systems and responsibilities of government agencies in building statistical information systems are also clarified.

 

Besides, in the draft law, the term “use of statistical administrative data system” is introduced because the use of administrative data for statistical activity will take advantage of existing resources to update data timely and regularly to save costs and reduce troubles and burdens for both information providers and information collectors.

 

The most important contents of the revised law are clarifying the responsibility of statistical data evaluation and speeding up statistical data forecast and analysis. This is also a step to remove data differences between central and local statistical agencies. The new law also clearly defines the responsibility and role of central statistics agencies in appraising statistical data of ministries and sectors in national statistics system. In case ministries and sectors fail to implement appraisal opinions of central statistics offices, the latter will decide and hold responsibility for their decision to the Prime Minister (Clause 5, Article 53).

 

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, many ministries and central statistics offices publish one statistical indicator using two different types of data or GDP differences between central and local agencies that lead to discrepancy, contradiction and duplication of statistical information. These shortcomings are resulted from incomplete awareness of provincial leaders who only excessively care about local economic development achievements. This wields pressure on statisticians in reporting data and infringing on the nature of statistical independence and objectivity. Besides, another reason that leads to data difference is the provision of varied data, usually far from accurate, by ministries and sectors for statistics agencies, thus resulting in misleading production and business data. Another reason to statistical difficulty is the self-contained, unshared information of ministries and sectors.

 

Thus, according to experts, in order to ensure consistency and transparency, localities will use official data calculated and announced by the General Statistics Office (GSO). Gross regional domestic product (GRDP) will be a very important economic indicator and a basis for formulating and implementing regional and local social and economic development policies. In the past time, GRDP announced by localities was usually 1.5-2 times higher than the country’s GDP growth. Thus, the draft revised law must impose international standard and practices to statistic data to ensure accuracy and reality. This method will certainly lower local GRDP data, but the outcome will be true values. Or in other words, it is time to bring an end to current local GDP calculation.