December 18, 2006	Monday	Ziqa'ad 26, 1427

THE flow of accurate and timely data is necessary to help the market take informed decisions. The government releases foreign trade, inflation and tax revenue figures on a monthly basis and the overall performance of the economy every quarter.

But a lot of information is not updated on timely basis and more transparency is required to help entrepreneurs to take investment decisions which are not readily available.

In some countries, government documents on the state of the domestic economy, inflation, foreign trade figures etc are distributed through private sector and are not sold by the government itself as is the case with Pakistan.

Besides, in certain sensitive areas, there is a lack of creditability about official data, more so because the Statistics Division is part of the ministry of finance.

After a prolonged delay , the statistical division will be converted into autonomous Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) before the end of the current financial year, say officials. The PBS is expected to impart credibility to official data, its analysis and interpretations.

The federal cabinet has already approved the creation of PBS through merger of three attached departments - FBS, ACO, PCO & Technical Wing of Statistics Division.

The new entity will be headed by the chief statistician with five professional members to be recruited through open competition by Pakistanis working in the country and abroad. A new law to this effect has been drafted by a legal expert and circulated among all the stakeholders for their comments.

"Hopefully the restructuring process will be completed by end June 2007, which will provide a strong professional base for statistics in the country", says the secretary Statistics Division Asad Illahi.

The restructuring/reorganisation of the division involving merger of attached departments of Statistics Division and revision of Statistical laws was approved by the cabinet on July 12, 2006. To accomplish the task, project manager and legal experts have been appointed in collaboration with DFID of England. The draft law is being finalised and steps are being taken to implement the restructuring process as scheduled.

The IMF officials view Pakistan’s data are broadly adequate for effectively surveillance but believe that further improvements in the availability and timeliness of key economic statistics would help policy analysis and formulation. They have to work together on avoiding the recurrence of large statistical discrepancies between the above- and below- the line- fiscal outturns of last two years.

Officials say that data collection through censuses/surveys in different socio-economic sectors is a technical area. It involves preparation of proper sample frame, sample design and adequate training of enumerators and strong supervision for the correct and timely collection of data.

"Generally, the people who are not aware of the technicality of the subject make certain comments which create a wrong perception about the data collected as well as the data collecting agency," he complained.

Some what similar position is with regard to data being collected by the Statistics Division/FBS particularly in the areas of price statistics, trade and industrial production data.

The price statistics includes collection of retail and wholesale prices and computation of three indices namely Consumer Price Index (CPI), Wholesale Prices Index (WPI) and Sensitive Price Index (SPI). CPI is main measure of price change at the retail level on monthly basis and is a measure of inflation. SPI is measure of the change in prices of essential items on weekly basis and is being used to review price situation. WPI measures the change of prices in the primary wholesale markets to measure the general prices level and direction of prices.

SPI covers 375 items and 35 cities. The cities are selected on population basis. The selection of cities is made through appropriate stratified random selection keeping into consideration, geographical and regional representation of all areas of Pakistan.

Similarly, SPI is computed for 53 items in 17 cities while the WPI is based on 106 commodities, 425 items and covers 18 cities. Weightage of items in the CPI and SPI is based on the expenditure incurred by families during a year.

This is evaluated after five years based on family budget survey. In addition to this, prices of 18 items are being collected in 35 cities on daily basis and sent to provincial and district governments for taking necessary measures to check the price hike.

"The CPI/inflation rate computed by the FBS is in line with the international practices/recommendations. However, when an abnormal change occurs in price of a single item, a common person who is directly affected by the said change and is not aware of the whole system of computation of indices, doubts the inflation rate," Mr Illahi explained.Trade statistics is another area which is usually commented by the users with regard to its time lag etc. The position in this regard is that before June 2004, the FBS Karachi was receiving GD Forms from the customs collectorates and was releasing the summary of totals of import/export figures on 5th of each month and summary of 34 items on 8th of each month. While final figures were released after 45 days, the supply of GDs was stopped by the CBR from July 2004 to February 2005 and PRAL, a subsidiary of the CBR, started to supply the import/export data through GD. Non-supply of detailed GD forms delayed release of reports.

A series of meetings were held with the CBR and it was decided that the CBR would supply the collectorate-wise total of imports/exports and on the bases of these totals, the FBS will release the summary totals after 10th of each month while for preparation of detail of 34 items and final report, FBS will receive the GDs from all the customs points. Thus CBR restored the supply of GDs to FBS from March 2005.

In the meantime the CBR started automation of data. Presently this automation is being handled through two systems simultaneously i.e. Custom one (PRAL) and Model Custom Collectorate Karachi (CARE). Recently connectivity of both the systems has been provided to the FBS Karachi for downloading of imports/exports data on monthly/daily basis. The FBS carries out detailed check of each record/GDs before releasing the detailed item-wise data.

As is the case with trade statistics the industrial statistics is also not collected from field by FBS itself. The data of large-scale industrial establishments is provided by the three sources i.e. M/o Industries, Provincial Bureaus of Statistics and Oil Companies Advisory Committee (OCAC). The FBS on the basis of monthly production data provided by these agencies is computing Quantum Index of Manufacturing Industries which is an indicator of monthly growth in the large-scale manufacturing.

To overcome the data deficiencies which include the incomplete coverage of the new units in the industrial production, high-level meetings were held with the M/o Industries and other concerned and necessary steps are being taken accordingly by these agencies.

"Our Division has also proposed the establishment of Business Register, which is a systematic collection of data related to individual businesses in such a way that regular updating is possible," Mr Illahi said. A committee to look into the concept has been constituted by the prime minister.

"I think this clarifies that price data, price indices and inflation rate being reported by the FBS is in line with the international standards. However delay in case of industrial statistics, is caused by untimely reporting by industrial units to the concerned authority is being addressed", he said.

Apart from three areas this Division/FBS collects data in different socio-economic sectors through different censuses/surveys. To improve the credibility, timeliness and availability of data, this Division has taken various steps such as capacity building of officers, collaboration with donors, public-private partnership and other measures including increase in supervision of field operations.