Government and Policy

NBS to make data more credible

By Wang Xiaotian and Hu Yuanyuan (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-03 09:16

Lights illuminate homes in the new Kangbashi section of Ordos, Inner Mongolia autonomous region. The National Bureau of Statistics said it will collect data on the housing vacancy rate. [Doug Kanter / Bloomberg]

Department charts major plan to reform processes, methodologies

BEIJING - China will publish its findings on the housing vacancy rate after scrutinizing the findings from pilot programs in some cities, the nation's top statistician said on Wednesday.

Ma Jiantang, head of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), said the government will take steps to improve the accuracy and credibility of its official data.

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The draft of the housing price statistics reform will be published in two months, and come into effect from 2011. At the same time the bureau will still use the old method for reference purposes.

Trials are also being conducted for a unified local gross domestic product (GDP) calculation system. The bureau will send its preliminary plan for approval soon.

"After it gets the consent, we will incorporate the necessary changes, get legal approval and then implement it," he said.

The bureau will start using more and more advanced software in its data collection process. It has already made a beginning in this regard, by using specialized software to calculate seven key indicators. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and some domestic institutes helped the bureau in this initiative, he said.

Other changes on the agenda are specific classification of salary statistics and a new sample pool of the monthly unemployment rate. The new sample pool of monthly unemployment and six-month labor market surveys in the first half of 2011, will utilize data collected from the sixth census.

"We should utilize the census data to collate information on vacant houses," said Ma, adding nearly 10 percent of the census respondents will be asked to answer a questionnaire on residence information.

He said despite the various definitions of "vacant" housing, and the unwillingness of some residents to provide true information, the government will try to collect the relevant statistics in an accurate and professional way.

The bureau will also take samples from some communities in different cities to discover detailed problems.

Ma said the bureau will shorten the time gap in monthly data collation and publication from 2011. The bureau collates its data between the 8th and 9th of every month and publishes it on 13th. The NBS will also support its responses to public queries with professional and scientific data.

The bureau had recently come under fire for its data on housing, incomes and consumption. The conflicts between official figures and people's perceptions were intensified after the bureau said China's average home prices rose 1.5 percent for the whole of 2009. But observers said the actual growth was much higher than the official rate.

Ma, however, said the public criticism is a "strong momentum" for constant improvement of official statistics. "This is the right time to reform and further develop China's official statistics. The pressure will help improve our working," he said.

NBS is also planning to revamp the indexes that have raised public discussions. It will adopt unified standards and elevate the methodology used for calculation in a regular and proactive manner, said Ma.

A direct data collection system will be set up on the Internet over the next two years to achieve these reforms, he said.

It will help respondents communicate data for indexes like Consumer Price Index directly to the bureau without interference from local governments.

"We want the public to have an idea of all the programs that we work on along with the detailed methods for data calculation. This will help us to provide more open, transparent and readable statistical information."

"It is indeed welcome that the bureau is reforming its processes," said Wang Tao, an analyst at Credit Suisse. "Economists are closely monitoring real estate information, the unemployment rate and the labor resource situation."

China Daily