STATISTICAL CO-OPERATION BETWEEN THE OECD AND CHINA

Enrico Giovannini

OECD Chief Statistician

Introduction

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is a well-known worldwide institution actively involved in the formulation of policy recommendations in key areas of interest to its member governments, holding co-operation agreements with almost all other international organisations. In undertaking this work the OECD Secretariat requires a wide range of comparable statistics for both the analytical work underpinning the development of policy recommendations and for its ongoing work monitoring developments in Member countries and in key non-member economies. The OECD also disseminates a substantial amount of statistics to external users. To ensure comparability and reliability of these statistics the Secretariat promotes the development and adoption of international statistical standards and best methodological practice. The Organisation is often called upon to develop recommendations in emerging areas of policy interest to governments, which in many instances, requires the development of new types of statistics, statistical standards and statistical systems. These activities are normally carried out in co-operation with national statistical offices (NSOs), central banks, government agencies and other international organisations.

The statistical representation of the complexity of today’s world is the most important challenge facing national and international statisticians. The integration of economic, social and environmental dimensions is one of the most significant needs expressed by policy makers and civil societies. The mobility of products and factors changes the way in which economies work, rendering country borders less relevant and economic transactions more intangible, which in turn make the measurement of outputs extremely difficult. High quality statistics represent a fundamental source for individual and collective decision making processes. Therefore, it is necessary that international, national and local communities consider reliable statistics a vital tool in assessing where they stand and where they want to go.

Over the recent years, OECD member countries have shown increasing interest in establishing links and carrying out work related to countries outside the OECD area. Such interest has been triggered by the rising importance and awareness of economic and policy issues whose discussion inevitably has to involve non-Member economies (NMEs), such as questions about trade, governance, globalisation or sustainable development.

Across all subject areas, OECD’s work programme for 2003-2004 has seen some further shift away from the European programmes, and towards the Global Forums as well as Latin America, Asia and the NEPAD countries. In the statistics field, this re-orientation has in many cases led to a focus on fewer and mainly non-European countries. More specifically, statistical work has been re-directed towards six large non-Member countries, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia and South Africa. Among them, China is of particular interest, given its size, pace of economic development and its success in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI).

The OECD is active in several statistical domains, playing a crucial role both in the collection and dissemination of statistical data and metadata, and in carrying out innovative methodological work. Its Statistical Programme of Work (see www.oecd.org/statistics) contains brief descriptions for approximately 100 individual activities envisaged for 2004.

This note provides an overview of the statistical co-operation between the OECD and China, and covers both activities that are carried out on a bilateral basis and those that involve China in a multi-lateral context. Few proposals for further development of such fruitful co-operation are presented in the final section.

Types of statistical co-operation

Several developments are worth highlighting concerning the type of statistical co-operation carried out by the OECD. There are essentially three types of activities:

i) Dialogue on statistical standards, quality and methodology. This work has been aimed at improving NMEs’ statistical capacity in well-designated subject areas. In the past, significant effort went into assisting countries to develop statistical projects. More recently, this approach has become less important as Member countries have been reviewing their strategies towards NMEs .

       This shift in focus translates into activities and events that focus on dialogue and co-operation rather than on a one-way transmission of technical knowledge from OECD and its member countries to NMEs, including China. For example, in terms of the OECD work programme, some statistical activities are now hosted under the OECD’s Global Forum on Governance to underline the aspect of statistical standards, quality and methodology, and their importance to produce reliable statistics for improving decision-making processes. A new topic, quality management in statistical offices, has been taken up and started out with a seminar later in 2003. 

ii) Data and indicator development. This type of activity consists of developing new statistics in co-operation with China, with a view to developing policy-relevant sets of indicators. A recent example for such work is the OECD’s set of indicators for a knowledge-based economy in China . Another example is the development of composite leading indicators for large NMEs, including China.  A third example relates to environmental indicators, discussed in the context of an OECD-China workshop on the topic.  Finally, data is being collected for the measurement of the level of agricultural support as a part of the review of agricultural policies in China.

iii) Collection of existing national data by OECD. Here, OECD does not strive at developing new sets of data or synthesising them as indicators but rather at collecting existing basic data and adding value by developing knowledge about the international comparability of such series.

One example of such data collection is the macro-economic series compiled for the Main Economic Indicators publication. The challenge here has been to complement internet publications as the predominant source of data – which typically provides little metadata – with direct links to Chinese statistical agencies. Such direct contact at the working level is important for the comprehension and interpretation of the data.

Other examples for Chinese data collected by the OECD are research and development expenditure and personnel statistics, statistics on international direct investment and trade statistics.  

Subject areas

The choice of subject areas for cooperation with China has been driven by OECD’s experience in a number of statistical fields and by demand from member countries and from China. The main subject areas in which the OECD co-operates with China are:

  (i)         national accounts;

  (ii)        purchasing power parities;

  (iii)       business tendency surveys and composite leading indicators;

   (iv)     science and technology statistics:

              --   R&D expenditure and personnel;

              --   Human resources in science and technology (HRST);

              --   Biotechnology statistics;

  (v)        international trade by commodity statistics;

  (vi)       environmental indicators;

  (vii)      statistical quality and governance in statistics;

  (viii)     indicators of agricultural support;

  (ix)       foreign direct investment (FDI) statistics .

What are the benefits for China?

For co-operation with China to work, the interest by OECD countries has to be matched by interest on China’s side. With the focus of statistical activities shifting away from ‘technical assistance’, it is legitimate for NMEs to enquire about the short- and longer-term benefits from such co-operation.  Some possible benefits are straightforward to identify – better understanding of statistical systems in OECD countries and of international standards will help improving comparability of data and this should be of interest to all parties concerned. The same holds for contacts between managers of statistical systems and the possibility to exchange and learn from each others’ practical experience.

However, there may be some more indirect beneficial effects from co-operation. One of them is the possibility – via participation in OECD meetings – to voice China’s interests and concerns and so influence priority-setting of OECD countries: a better comprehension of China's needs will be valuable when decisions are taken concerning bilateral and international assistance programmes.  OECD countries’ national statistical offices sometimes voice the need for greater international co-ordination when it comes to the management of the various bilateral statistical assistance programmes: OECD bodies could very well assume a role of information exchange, thereby better meeting China’s needs while helping to avoid duplication between OECD countries’ efforts.  

What kind of process?

One of the ways of carrying forward this work is by involvement of NMEs in OECD statistical working parties. Formally, this can happen in two ways. First, by acquiring status as participant, or observer in OECD committees and working parties. For example, China, Israel, Russia and South Africa have observer status in the OECD’s Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy and its subsidiary bodies, including its statistical working party NESTI (National Experts on Science and Technology Indicators).

China has also been invited to the OECD meeting of heads of statistical offices of Member countries Here the situation has changed, however, with the recent creation of an OECD Statistics Committee. To participate in the Statistics Committee and its working parties on a regular basis, the rules set up by the OECD Council apply and have to be followed. Notwithstanding the procedural questions, presence by China in the Statistics Committee would constitute an important step forward in the international integration of China’s statistical work.

The second approach can be implemented by following invitations to informal and ad-hoc expert meetings. This has for example applied to ad-hoc expert meetings resorting under NESTI where China participated in two workshops in 2003, one on innovation and one on Human Resources in Science and Technology (HRST), and will participate in the 5th Ad Hoc Meeting on Biotechnology Statistics and in the workshop on user needs for indicators on careers of doctorate holders. Similarly, China regularly participated in the National Accounts Expert Meeting. Another example is trade statistics: OECD collects, harmonises and disseminates detailed merchandise trade data for OECD countries plus selected NMEs including China and China has been invited to participate in the Annual Trade Expert Group Meetings (an informal group that exists since 1999) at the OECD and Chinese Customs Authorities have participated on several occasions.

At present, China has participated on a regular basis and/or has observer status in the following formal and informal OECD statistical bodies:

  (i)         High-level meeting of OECD statisticians (recently transformed into the OECD Statistics Committee);

  (ii)        National Accounts expert meeting;

  (iii)       Short-term economic statistics expert group;

  (iv)       International trade expert group;

  (v)        National Experts on Science and Technology Indicators (NESTI) and its ad-hoc working groups on HRST, innovation and biotechnology.

In table 1 a provisional list of meeting to which China is invited to attend is presented.

Table 1 - Overview of statistical meetings involving China in 2004

A third approach can entail the exchange of staff with the OECD and mutual visits can provide a practical method of exchanging experience and establishing a dialogue between Chinese and OECD experts. For example, the OECD Investment Division welcomes such an exchange of staff from China to participate in work on FDI statistics. Chinese statisticians have visited the OECD at several occasions, including a two-week stay to work on purchasing power parities.

The way forward

As already mentioned, the dialogue with China has a very high priority for OECD countries. Statistics is integral part of such dialogue and the quality of Chinese statistics is an issue of interest to all OECD countries.

Notwithstanding the progresses showed over the last years by Chinese statistics, also thanks to the international co-operation with OECD, other international organisations and individual countries, the Chinese statistical system has to further improve its organisation and its capacity to deliver high quality statistics, according to world statistical standards.

High quality statistics are fundamental for helping national and international authorities, businesses and individuals to make their plans and to take decisions. The OECD is fully committed to contributing to the effort of improving the quality of statistics both in its Member countries and in NMEs. This contribution is based on two pillars: technical discussions and strategic initiatives to promote the development and the use of statistics for decision making.

OECD workshops on specific subject matters and especially on the management of statistical quality are important opportunities to address technical issues, exchanging experiences already made in other countries.

But the effort of improving the statistical knowledge of a country has to be sustained by all parts of the society. Without an overall strategy to foster the compilation, the dissemination and the capacity of using statistics the statistical knowledge cannot become a “public good”. To address this issue the OECD will organise a world Forum in November 2004 on “Statistics, Knowledge and Policy”, with the participation of 600 qualified experts representing all parts of OECD societies (policy makers, academic institutions, media, businesses, etc.), to discuss the development of institutional frameworks and technical initiatives to identify and calculate key indicators for assessing the situation of a country (a region, a local community) from the economic, social and environmental points of view. China is invited to attend such Forum, to share with other countries its view about such issues.

In conclusion, the OECD, as well as other international organisations, can play an important role to contribute to the improvement of Chinese statistics. The analytical and policy work done by the OECD Secretariat also represents an important tool to identify strengths and weaknesses of Chinese statistics and to suggest areas that require further improvements.

A good co-ordination of multilateral and bilateral co-operation activities is fundamental to maximise the effectiveness of these activities and the OECD is available to explore any proposals to improve such co-ordination.

__________

[1] This is reflected in the OECD’s Centre for Co-operation with Non-member countries’ Integrated Programme of Activities 2003-2004: “Activities have evolved from specific assistance to transition economies to more general policy dialogue. Nevertheless, there is only a fine line between the two kinds of activities: regional and country programmes help non-members implement OECD standards, guidelines and principles; this is a learning process.”

2 This activity was suspended due to resource constraints. China (MOFCOM) has repeatedly expressed interest in re-establishing a co-operation programme with the OECD on FDI statistics. Seminars were organised by the OECD Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs, Investment Division in co-operation with MOFCOM for officials from various agencies, including provincial branches. The objective was to provide training on how to measure FDI according to the recommendations of the OECD Benchmark Definition of Foreign Direct Investment (also available in Chinese) and how to analyse the statistical data.