Mr. Ma Jiantang Attended the Sixth Meeting of Heads of National Statistical Offices of BRICS Countries in Brazil and Visited Argentina
Mr. Ma Jiantang Attended the Sixth Meeting of Heads of National Statistical Offices of BRICS Countries in Brazil
Visited Argentina to Discuss the Implementation of the Joint Action Plan between the Government of China and Government of Argentina
From November 17 to 18, Mr. Ma Jiantang, Commissioner of NBS, led a delegation to attend the Sixth Meeting of Heads of the National Statistical Offices of BRICS Countries in Brazil, to study the implementation of the instructions on statistical work made during the sixth meeting of the BRICS leaders. Mr. Ma visited National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC) of Argentina from November 19 to 20, to discuss the implementation of statistical cooperation related issue of the Joint Action Plan between the two governments.
Since 2010, the Meeting of Heads of National Statistical Offices of BRICS was held once a year, and the sixth meeting was hosted by Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), on duty in turns. In July this year, the sixth meeting of the BRICS leaders issued a Declaration of Fortaleza, made explicit instructions on statistical work, required that statistical institutions jointly study and formulate statistical methods of social development indicators with departments of health and education, and bring them into the BRICS Joint Statistical Publication.
At the meeting, Mr. Ma proposed that the National Statistical Offices of BRICS should work together to implement the requirements of the Declaration; strengthen the cooperation on social statistics, based on the principle of starting with easy things first, following a step-by-step approach, and incorporate indicators related to health, education and other social statistics into BRICS Joint Statistical Publication 2015; National Statistical Offices of BRICS lead in coordinating related departments of every country, to comment on the content of social statistical indicators, such as indicators related to health, education, etc. ; National Statistical Offices of BRICS hold technical meetings, to specifically coordinate statistical methods, data collection and release, and other specific implementation measures; National Statistical Offices should report to the leaders of the countries on the implementation progress. Meeting endorsed the views of China, and asked Federal State Statistics Service of Russia, the next rotating country, to propose detailed implementation programs.
During the meeting, the Delegation of NBS presented the BRICS Statistical Cooperation: Summary for the First Round (2009-2013) and Suggestions for the Second Round (2014-2018). The file systematically summarized the activities of the first round of BRICS statistical cooperation, spoke highly of the achievements and impact of cooperation, and provided suggestions for the framework of the second round of statistical cooperation. Meeting agreed in principle on the contents of the file presented by China, which would be published as an official document of the meeting after further additional modifications. The meeting held that the priorities of the next round of BRICS statistical cooperation would include: to expand the contents of social statistics, such as health, education, etc., to introduce a method of online editing Joint Statistical Publication and other advanced methods, and to strengthen coordination and cooperation of BRICS in international statistical activities.
During President Xi Jinping’s visit to Argentina in July this year, the two governments signed a Joint Action Plan, of which, the Article 12 referred to the area of statistics. Prior to this, in May 2013, NBS and INDEC signed the Memorandum of Understanding of Statistical Cooperation, and made arrangements for the exchanges and cooperation between NBS and INDEC. During the visit, Mr. Ma and Mr. Norberto Itzcovich, Head of INDEC, had in-depth discussions on the implementation of related matters of the inter-governmental Joint Action Plan. Both sides believed that statistical cooperation was an important part of the Joint Action Plan, which both sides should attach great importance to, and seriously implement. Based on common key work of NBS and INDEC, the cooperation could be gradually conducted, which at this stage could be focused on agricultural statistics and censuses, tourism statistics, assets and liabilities evaluation, resources and environment surveys, to apply accounting technologies to statistics, application of geographic information system in data collection and release, statistics of social transformation, etc.. The two sides agreed that they would continue to discuss further, determine key areas, implementation steps, time scheduling and expected results of cooperation, formulate agreements on cooperation implementation, which would be signed and implemented in March 2015.
INDEC also emphatically introduced the agricultural census in Argentina, application of geographic information system in statistics , and other work to the Delegation of NBS.
On November 19, Mr. Ma was invited to meet with Mr. Axel Kicillof, Minister of Economy of Argentina, and exchanged views on economic and statistical work with him.
Other members of the Delegation of NBS included: Mr. Du Weiqun, Acting Director-General of Department of International Cooperation, Ms. Jia Nan, Director-General of Department of Social, Science and Technology, and Cultural Statistics, Mr. Song Yuezheng, Director-General of Department of Rural Surveys, and Mr. Zhao Yuncheng, Director-General of International Statistical Information Center.