Mr. Ma Jiantang Met with the INDEC Delegation Signed the Memorandum of Understanding between the NBS and the INDEC
On May 6, Mr. Ma Jiantang, Commissioner of the NBS, met with Ms. Ana María Edwin, head of the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC) of Argentina, and Argentine statistical delegation led by her. Mr. Gustavo A. Martino, Ambassador of the Republic of Argentina to China, was present at the meeting. After the talks, Mr. Ma and Ms. Edwin signed the memorandum of understanding between the NBS and the INDEC.
Mr. Ma welcomed Ms. Edwin and the Argentine statistical delegation to visit China, and welcomed Mr. Martino to participate in the statistical exchange between Argentina and China. Mr. Ma pointed out that Argentina is an important country in South America. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1972, Argentina and China maintained good cooperation and exchanges in political, economic, cultural and other fields, and have established the strategic and cooperative partnership. Signing memorandum of understanding will lay a solid foundation for statistical cooperation between the NBS and the INDEC. The NBS is willing to further expand statistical bilateral exchanges on this basis, learn from each others’ experience and best practices in the aim of promoting the mutual progress of statistical work in both countries.
Mr. Ma Jiantang made a presentation on China’s statistical system and priority areas of the statistical work. When introducing the preparations of China's third economic census, Mr. Ma pointed out that the census data collection will widely use the Internet, PDA and other modern techniques to reduce manpower, improve data quality and census efficiency. When talking about big data, Mr. Ma definned that big data is the huge amount of data in electronic form exists outside the statistical system. For statistical work, big data is both a challenge and an opportunity; the NBS is working on how to use big data in statistical work.
Ms. Edwin briefed the statistical system and statistical work of Argentina. Argentina has a large land area and small population, the disparity among regions is huge. Argentina is preparing to carry out a census of agriculture and animal husbandry, as well as economic census, to calculate the country's consumer price index. Ms. Edwin would like to take the opportunity of this visit to have an indepth understanding of China’s statistical work, and further improve the statistical work of Argentina.
Mr. Martino pointed out that since the establishment of diplomatic relations between Argentina and China in 1972, the bilateral cooperation has reached unprecedented level. Two countries have established a strategic partnership, further strengthening the cooperation and exchanges in the field of statistics will be encouraged.
Mr. Ma and Ms. Edwin signed the “Memorandum of Understanding between the National Bureau of Statistics of the People's Republic of China and the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses of the Argentina Republic”. Both sides agreed to carry out in-depth cooperation in the fields of consumer price index, the use of administrative records, census of agriculture, data dissemination, etc..
The Argentine statistics delegation will also visit the Statistics Bureaus of Beijing and Shanghai.
Messrs. Juan Carlos Paz, Minister of Economic and Commercial Section of Embassy of the Argentine Republic, Norberto Damián Itzcovich, Technical Director of INDEC, Fabián De Achaval, Minister’s advisor of Ministry of Economy attended the meeting. Messrs. Du Weiqun, Director-General of Department of International Cooperation, Xu Xiaohai, Acting Director-General of Department of Policies and Legislation, Feng Nailin, Director-General of Department of Population and Employment Statistics, Pang Xiaolin, Director-General of Department of Urban Surveys, Xia Rongpo, Acting Director-General of Statistics Education and Training Centre, Zhang Jun, Deputy Director-General of Department of International Cooperation, and Ms. Zhang Dongyou, Deputy Director-General of Department of National Accounts of the NBS were present.