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The Statistics Advisory Board held a regular meeting yesterday (May 24) to review the main scope of government statistical work and its recent developments.
At the meeting, Members were updated on the latest progress of the major preparatory work for the 2006 Population By-census (06BC) which would be conducted in July to August this year.
"It has been an established practice in Hong Kong since 1961 to conduct a population census every 10 years and a by-census in the middle of the intercensal period. The purpose of population censuses/by-censuses is to obtain up-to-date benchmark information on the size and socio-economic characteristics of the population and on its geographical distribution," said Mr Fung Hing-wang, Commissioner for Census and Statistics and Chairman of the Statistics Advisory Board.
"Preparatory work for the 06BC is at its final stage. It includes, amongst other things, recruitment and training of some 5 000 temporary field workers for data collection, and the launching of a range of publicity activities. For this round of by-census, apart from strengthening the use of technologies (e.g. use of Geographic Information System techniques) to support the field operation, we will also provide respondents with a convenient means of data furnishing via the Internet and adopt Intelligent Character Recognition technology with an aim to enhance the efficiency in data capturing. It is planned that the earliest set of 06BC results will be released in February/March 2007," Mr Fung continued.
Members were briefed on the new 2004/05-based Consumer Price Index (CPI) series released recently by the Census and Statistics Department (C&SD). The rebased CPIs were compiled based on the latest expenditure patterns of households derived from the 2004/05 Household Expenditure Survey. Compared with the old (1999/2000-based) CPI series, the new (2004/05-based) CPI series showed a similar trend of movement but generally smaller year-on-year rates of increase. This was because households tended to buy more goods and services with relatively small price increases (or relatively large price decreases) and less of those with relatively large price increases (or relatively small price decreases). Owing to such substitution effect, CPIs with expenditure patterns fixed to a base year tended to over-estimate the impact of price increases or under-estimate the impact of price decreases over time. In this connection, it was an established practice to rebase the CPIs once every five years in order to ensure that up-to-date expenditure patterns of households were accurately reflected in the compilation of the CPIs.
Also reported at the meeting was the development of a framework for compiling Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) statistics. Members were briefed on the compilation methodology and the SME statistics, including the number of SMEs, the number of persons engaged and value added.
Members were informed about the latest development effort undertaken at the international level on "Green Gross Domestic Product (GDP)". Up till the present moment, there was no consensus at the international front on whether or not to compile "Green GDP" figures, given the limitations in establishing the related conceptual and technical framework. The main difficulty was the lack of reliable source data to assign monetary values to the damages of economic activities done to the environment. For Hong Kong, because of the dominance of service activities which had little impact on the environment, the compilation of "Green GDP" was not considered a priority.
Members noted that, in view of the pervasive international trend in making available downloadable statistical data/products free-of-charge, the C&SD had reviewed the current charging policy for download versions of detailed statistics (including publications). It was decided that the free provision of download versions of detailed statistics should be included as part of the C&SD's policy on dissemination of statistics. Implementation of this new initiative would help promote both statistical literacy and better informed decision making in the community through enhancing the availability and accessibility of Hong Kong official statistics - an important ingredient in decision making within both public and private sectors. The free download policy was scheduled for initial roll-out at the online "Statistical Bookstore, Hong Kong" (www.statisticalbookstore.gov.hk) in June 2006 and at the C&SD's Website (www.censtatd.gov.hk) later this year.
At the meeting, the Board also reviewed other statistical developments since the previous meeting, including the e-government initiatives in statistical work; promotion of statistical literacy among different sectors of the community; and the new opening hours of the C&SD and various means of obtaining statistical services after the implementation of five-day week.
The Statistics Advisory Board is a non-statutory advisory body which advises the Commissioner for Census and Statistics on matters pertaining to government statistical work. The terms of reference and composition of the Board can be found on the C&SD Website (www.censtatd.gov.hk/about_us/our_advisory_board/index.jsp). Agenda of the recent meetings of the Board together with the press releases on key issues discussed are also posted there.
Ends/Thursday, May 25, 2006
Issued at HKT 16:43
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