1 The ICT Statistics of Business Sector in China By Lu Haiqi International Statistical Information Center, National Bureau of Statistics People’s Republic of China

2 The ICT Statistics of Business Sector in China Background and Overview Goal Model and Interim Project The Practice of Interim Project Some Statistics Results Main Problems Encountered Future Plan

3 1. Background and Overwiew 1.1 Background In the ending of 20th century and the beginning of 21st century, human society has entered the information society. Informatization (which is similar to the term of application of ICT) had been developed rapidly in the past decade worldwide, so did in China. The Central Committee of Communist Party of China (CPC) and the State Council forwarded the development strategy that informatization leads industrialization, and industrialization promotes informatization.

4 1.2 Overview National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS) pays great attention to the evaluation and monitoring application of ICT, and has done lots of work. By the end of 2005, –has done specified survey of informatization for government, enterprise, and household sector in the whole country, –added informatization indicators to the questionnaires of conventional reporting system. –has conducted analysis work for the application of ICT from different angles to provide necessary supports for government to decide and develop national informatization development plan. At present, NBS is trying to improve ICT statistics and research work, including the efforts to implement the international project with OECD, UNCTAD and ITU. And NBS welcomes further international organizations and relevant countries to provide technical supports.

5 2. Goal Model and Interim Project In 2004, NBS conducted pilot ICT survey for governmental sector, business sector and household sector in 10 provinces (autonomous regions and municipals). National Bureau of Statistics convened working meeting on informatization statistics on August 22, 2005, forwarded the goal mode of ICT statistics, and made a decision to implement a interim project statistics in 2005.

6 Goal model, refers to the goal for us to make great efforts and trying to achieve in current phase, which is forwarded by considering primarily from China’s ICT development status and trend, and combining current status of China’s statistics system. –In census year, NBS conducts mainly census to establish database of establishments and obtain current data for census year and revise data of none-census year after last census year. – In none-census year, NBS conducts sample survey according to the sample frame established in census year to obtain current data. Therefore, the goal model of ICTstatistics is the mode of combination of periodical census and conventional sample survey. 2.1 Goal Model

7 Interim project means adopting temporary measurements when conventional informatization survey system is not established. It is necessary to establish conventional informatization survey system as the important component of official statistics system. However, at the moment, it is impossible to possess for the considerations such as –financial guarantee, –organization setting, –and reserve of professional human resources. In order to support the drafting national informatization strategy and development plan, NBS studies to develop the interim project of informatization statistical work, namely, –adding ICT indicators to conventional reporting forms, –complement it by conducting specified informatization survey to obtain urgently some data of core ICT indicators. 2.2 Interim Project

8 3.1 Adding ICT Indicators to Conventional On-line Reporting Forms 3.2 Conducting Specified ICT Survey 3. The Practice of Interim Project

9 3.1 Adding ICT Indicator to Conventional On-line Reporting Forms NBS has established conventional on-line reporting systems in –Roughly industrial enterprises, –Roughly 2000 wholesale retail enterprises, and –Roughly 3000 real estate enterprises. NBS has added four ICT indicators to the annual reporting form as follows, –Number of personal computers (PC) in use, –Number of websites of the enterprises, –On-line sales, and –On-line purchases.

Conducting Specified ICT Survey The Design of Questionnaire The questionnaire is composed of two main parts: –First, the basic status of establishments; –Second, status of ICT application. Three kinds of questions are raised in the questionnaires, –Quantitative questions, –Objective qualitative questions, and –Subjective qualitative questions. For instance, the main problems establishments met of informatization application, the support and services required, and suggestions regarding ICT application.

Selecting Samples The samples for business sector amounts to 6142, and respondent rate is 96.6% for NBS selects samples in the databank developed from Economic Census of –Firstly, the enterprises were classified based on national industrial classification standard. –Secondly, the enterprises of each industry were divided into six categories based on the yearend employees and annual revenues. –Lastly, NBS selected samples randomly according the sample size allocated for each category.

12 The formula employed to estimate population is : Y=∑w i y i Where Y is population estimation w i is final weight of the i th responding establishment; y i is the indicator value of the i th responding establishment. The proportion estimation formula is: P=∑w i q i /∑w i q’ i Where P is the proportion to be estimated; w i is the final weight for the i th responding establishment; q i is the option value in questionnaires for the i th responding establishment. When option value is “yes” or the option was selected, then q i =1, otherwise, q i =0 ； q i represents the i th valid responding establishment, when the i th responding establishment is valid sample, q’ i =1; otherwise, q’ i = Inferring Data of the Population

13 4. Some Statistics Results

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20 5. Main Problems Encountered The questionnaire of Economic Census in 2004 did not include main ICT indicators, so we can not find a good sample frame for ICT statistics With limited size samples, the data quality is not high enough to indicates regional level, even if there are strong need for that. E-commerce is far from popular in China, so it is different to choose samples.

21 6. Future Plan In the middle of September this year, OECD Seminar on ICT Statistics for China will be held, and 6 OECD, UNCTAD and ITU experts will be invited to visit China. NBS will try hard to realize Model Goal, and conventional ICT survey will be conducted annually.

22 Thank You !