Mr. Ma Jiantang was Re-elected as the Vice-Chairman of the UN Statistical Commission Mr. Zhang Weimin Participated the 44th Session of the UN Statistical Commission
The 44th session of the United Nations Statistical Commission was held at the UN headquarters in New York from February 26 to March 1. Mr. Ma Jiantang, Commissioner of the NBS of China, was re-elected as the Vice-Chairman of the United Nations Statistical Commission. The China Statistical Delegation, headed by Mr. Zhang Weimin, Vice-Commissioner of the NBS, participated the session, and communicated and discussed the statistical cooperation matters with persons in charge of relevant countries and statistical agencies of international organizations.
The United Nations Statistical Commission is the highest coordinating and decision-making mechanism of the global statistical system, responsible for the formulation and publication of global statistical standards, the integration of the programs of international statistical activities and statistical work, and the promotion of statistical capacity building and the development of statistical work in different countries. The Committee is composed of 24 member countries, and China became an elected member again in 2012, with a term up to the end of 2016. The United Nations Statistical Commission annually convenes a session, and the main task is to review and summarize the work carried out by the international statistical community since the last meeting, and to make arrangements for future statistical work plan.
During the 44th session, Mr. Ma Jiantang was re-elected as the Vice-Chairman of the United Nations Statistical Commission, composing the presidium of the Commission with the Chairman, other Vice-Chairmen and the Reporter, together 5 members, and will make decisions on international statistical work when the Commission is not in session.
The contents mainly discussed in the 44th session included 13 subjects, such as the combination of statistical information and geospatial information, basic principles of official statistics, the implementation of the System of National Accounts 2008, accounting system of environmental economy, environmental statistics, international comparison program, etc. Mr. Zhang Weimin made several speeches during the session, introduced the development of China statistics, and put forward China’s standpoints on relevant subjects. During the subject of the combination of statistical information and geospatial information was being considered, Mr. Zhang Weimin presented the plan that China is going to carry out economic census by using geospatial information; for the center framework of the accounting system of environmental economy, he stressed that the framework is temporarily not be implemented in China, while China will actively promote research in related fields, and step by step carry out related work flexibly in the future; for the international comparison program, he required that the quality verification of inter-State data should be carried out with an responsible attitude in a scientific and reasonable way; the incomparable factors between Round 2005 and 2011 should be fully considered, to avoid biased conclusions through simple and direct comparison; the opinions of participating countries on the release, range and indicator instructions of the final results should be widely gathered.
During the session, the China Delegation made an exchange with persons in charge of National Institute of Statistics and Censuses of Argentina, Statistics Canada, Federal Statistical Office of Germany, Statistics Netherlands, the United Nations Statistics Division, the statistical office of the European Union, the statistical office of OECD, the statistical office of APEC, and discussed matters related to mutual cooperation.
Other members of the China Statistical Delegation were Mr. Du Weiqun, Director-General of Department of International Cooperation, Mr. Liu Heng, Director-General of Department of Policies and Legislation, etc..