1 International Association for Official Statistics Conference 2008 New Trends in Data Needs in Official Statistics – The Experiences of Hong Kong

2 Growing Demand for Official Statistics External ForcesInternal Forces Development of official statistics +

3 Globalization  Widely mentioned since the late 20 th century  Significant growth of international movement of goods, services and capital in the global economy  Major external driving force in developing new statistics to meet the emerging statistical needs

4 Globalization (Cont’d)  Initiatives in developing new statistics in C&SD:  Development of foreign affiliates trade in services statistics  Establishment of Pearl River Delta database  Enhancement of the population statistics system

5 User-based Culture  Users are no longer obscure players nowadays  Required to deliver timely output in a comprehensive and interactive way  C&SD maintains a balanced statistical programme

6 User-based Culture (Cont’d)  Adopted an open and proactive policy in C&SD:  Close dialogue with different types of users  Maximization of data utility  Meeting increasing demand for small area statistics and microdata

7 Rapid Advances in Information and Communication Technology  Increasing public expectation on the availability and accessibility of statistics  Lower marginal costs of disseminating statistical information electronically  The Internet as the most important channel for disseminating statistics

8 Rapid Advances in Information and Communication Technology (Cont’d)  Examples of ICT usage in C&SD:  Implementation of free download policy  Development of new online interactive data dissemination system

9 Future Trends in User Needs of Official Statistics  Integration of statistical data at aggregate level  Growing demand of integration of data from various sources at local level  Moving towards integrating data at a regional and global level  Dissemination in the form of integrated databases

10 Future Trends in User Needs of Official Statistics (Cont’d)  Rapid development of longitudinal studies  Cross-sectional studies not suffice for certain analyses  Provide hints on individual-level change over time  Operational difficulties in conducting longitudinal studies

11 Future Trends in User Needs of Official Statistics (Cont’d)  Increasing demand for comparisons between countries  Measuring the relative social and economic well-being of countries  Monitoring the incidence of poverty  Tracking progress towards the Millennium Development Goals  Development of International Comparison Program

12 Future Trends in User Needs of Official Statistics (Cont’d)  Helping users in proper uses of statistics  User-centric in data dissemination  Should promote and help users in proper use and interpretation of statistics

13 Thank you !