Mr. Xie Fuzhan Attending the 38th Session of the Statistical Commission of the United Nations

The 38th Session of the United Nations Statistical Commission was held at United Nations Headquarters, New York, from 27 February to 2 March 2007. The Chinese Delegation, headed by Mr. Xie Fuzhan, Commissioner of the National Bureau of Statistics of China, attended the meeting.

When the Session opened on February 27, Mr. Xie Fuzhan was elected as Vice Chairman of the Commission. The Bureau of the Commission also included Mr. Gilberto Calvillo Vives (Mexico, Chairman), Ms. Heli Jeskanen-Sundström (Finland, Vice Chairwoman), Mr. Pali Lehohla (South Africa, Vice Chairman) and Mr. Péter Pukli (Hungary, Rapporteur).

During the meeting, the Chinese Delegation made extensive contacts with representatives from the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), World Bank (WB), International Monetary Fund (IMF), Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and other international organizations, and those from Germany, Canada, South Korea, Italy, Belarus, Finland, Mexico and other countries.

Mr. Xie Fuzhan was invited to make a briefing on China’s economic development at China's Permanent Mission to the United Nations.

The United Nations Statistical Commission was established in 1947, China was one of the founding members of the Commission. To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Commission, a series of side events took place before and during the session. At the opening ceremony of the 38th Session, Mr. Xie Fuzhan made a statement, congratulating the Commission for its achievements in the past 60 years in promoting the development of the global statistics and national statistics. The NBS and China Post joined in the celebration as well by presenting stamp albums to the attending delegations and by sending exhibits to the special exhibition held at the UN headquarters.

The 38th Session deliberated and decided on the following subjects: education statistics, population and housing censuses, disability measurement, ICT statistics, agricultural statistics, national accounts, integrated economic statistics, environmental accounting, international economic and social classifications; management of national statistical offices: access to microdata, development indicators, statistical capacity-building, International Comparison Program (ICP) and other issues.

The session also took notice of the progresses of other subjects: migration statistics, health statistics, industrial statistics, distributive trade statistics, energy statistics, finance statistics, price statistics, coordination of statistical activities, PARIS21 Report, and the opening standards of exchange and sharing of data and metadata.

Messrs. Li Qiang, Xian Zude, Du Weiqun, Wong Weng Sang, Eric (Macau), and Ms. Ouyang Fong Lily (HongKong) attended the above activities as well.

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Mr. Chairman,

I sincerely congratulate you to be elected as the Chairman of the United Nations Statistical Commission. I wish that this Session would be a great success under your leadership.

In 1946, a small but foresighted group of representatives gathered here in the United States, discussing the establishment of the Statistical Commission. One year later in 1947, the First Session of the Commission was held.

Sixty years ago, the entire world had just got out of the fire of the War and had many important things to do. However, those representatives took statistics as a priority and made profound recommendations which led to the establishment of the Commission. I am feeling proud of China’s participation in the above two important activities.

Over the past 60 years, the Commission has made unparalleled contributions to the development of international statistics as well as national statistics, and further to the understanding of all the nations of the world with the common language of statistics.

After 60 years, today’s statistics is an indispensable part of the political, economic and social life in all countries and will play a more important role in the future.

In the process from 60 years ago to now, and further to the future, the Commission has been and will be the leading entity of the world statistical system. By reviewing the development and wide applications of statistics, we should congratulate the Commission for its great achievements, and we should pay our deep respect for those who have made all this possible.

China’s statistics is now undergoing development, particularly since the economic reform programme launched almost three decades ago. With the rapid economic and social development, China’s statistical system has made remarkable achievements, which in turn make strong support to China’s development and to the exchanges between China and other parts of the world.

I hope that the Commission will take more effective actions to make further progress of global statistics. China is more than willing to join the international community in this effort.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.