NSO launches statistical data products

Caption: NSO statistical documents

By MATTHEW VARI

Wednesday, June 11, 2014 (Midweek Chronicle, PNG)

LAST week the National Statistics Office (NSO) launched four sets of statistical data products from the 2011 National Census and for the first time, an updated Consumer Price Index (CPI) Series, PNG Standard Industrial Classification (PNGSIC) 2014, and the NSO Corporate Plan 2015-2019.

In a media conference earlier in the week hosted by the Minister for Planning Charles Abel and Acting National Statistician Roko Koloma- both reiterated the department and NSO’s focus in revitalising the statistical body to capacitate it to be a major player in providing reliable data for effective development progress in the country.

“We have targeted the 2011 National Census final figures and have released detailed aspects information of the ward level analysis of the data,” Minister Abel said.

“NSO has also successfully released the new CPI, which measures inflation and its tendency to escalate or go down- measured for the first quarter of 2014 at the end of March in eight major towns for an urban inflation rate of 3.8 percent.”

“With the National Standard Industrial Classification updated, we can effectively measure GDP on the same basis as other countries internationally, which will enable us to undertake the Business Activity Survey for us to update our GDP measurement.”

Minister Abel also congratulated NSO for the launch of its corporate plan, which he said was a standard document that reflected the government’s commitment to re-organising NSO to get in plan in order to be reflected in the appropriate documents.

The acting statistician added that the publication of the documents reflected the stance of his office to revamp the systems in place at NSO, adding that with the injection of emphasis and resources into the office, they were now effectively operating to complete both the census data, and update vital measurements of annual economic data.

“Census Ward Count Reports for the four regions released on Friday are the second lot of published documents from the 2011 census,” Koloma said.

“We hope to complete the census data reports by releasing the analytical reports for all provinces and a national report before the end of the year.”

He also pointed out that the updated CPI was long overdue as the current CPI series was based on a Wage Earner’s Survey conducted between 1975 and 76 for a basket of commonly consumed goods.

“Now we have a CPI based on 2009 and 2010 Household and Income Expenditure Survey, we are able to get a new basket with more updated consumer patterns,” he said.

“The industrial classification is to do with compliance- we put together different economic activities in the country and measure GDP by sectors.”

He concluded that the corporate plan is a roadmap for the next five years, and hoped that it would push the government to make sure NSO is properly funded, resourced and skilled.

“I would like to thank the Minister and government for its support in driving the work of statistics gathering in the country.”