The Third East Asia Expert Meeting on Manufacturing Industry Statistics (EAMS), and The Seventh AEM-METI Economic and Industrial Cooperation Committee (AMEICC) held on May 28-30 in Novotel Peace Hotel, Beijing. Mr. Lin Xianyu, Deputy Commissioner, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), addressed on the meeting.
Mr. Lin Xianyu on behalf of NBS to express his warm congratulations to the convening of the conference, and the distinguished guests participated.
Mr. Lin Xianyu said, China's rapid industrial development play a very important role of the rapid growth of China's national economy. Since the reform and opening up, China's annual industrial growth rate reached 11.6 percent. By 2007, the industrial added value has exceeded 10 trillion yuan. Of the total, the manufacturing sector in particular, the equipment manufacturing industry has become the leading industries of China's national economy, and an important factor to promote a continuous development of China's economy.
Mr. Lin Xianyu pointed out that, the Chinese government has always attached importance to industry statistics works. China has established a line with the national conditions of industry survey system for the moment. In addition to the traditional industrial statistics of the comprehensive survey, sampling survey, and five-year economic census, industrial statistics also established an inter-enterprise networking report system between NBS and enterprises. Basically constituted “National Economic Industry Classification” in linking with the United Nations Industrial Classification, and is currently developing a statistical study on the use of the product classification standards. Recently, we have further improved the energy saving system and statistical indicators related to the survey system. The Chinese statistical departments put up the tireless efforts and exploration for establishing on a modern industrial statistics system in line with China's national conditions, as well as the international general rules at the present time. In cooperation with international counterparts, the Chinese statistical departments have also done a lot of works; and learn from many successful experiences.
Mr. Lin Xianyu said that, the East Asian economy has developed by leaps and bounds in the past decade. From 1998 to date, the average East Asian economies grew more than 9 percent, economic scale accounts for 40 percent of the world. As the World Bank reported, East Asia, especially China has increasingly become the world economy's "growth pole." China's manufacturing industry of China's GDP accounted for about 40 percent of the national economy as the main force. At present, with the acceleration of the trend of economic globalization, countries of East Asia regional economic and trade relations became more closely. Therefore, the major task of statistics is how to build a comparable industrial statistics information exchange platform among the countries to enhance the comparability of data, and share information between the regions, to better promote common development of East Asian countries and the world in manufacturing sector.
Finally, Mr. Lin Xianyu said, through this meeting will further enhance the mutual exchanges and strengthening the friendly cooperation between the national statistical experts in the 10+3 countries of ASEAN, to jointly better promote the development of the cause of statistics, and economic development, make new contributions of East Asian countries and the world.
According to reports, the ASEAN countries embarked on reunification based on the industrial statistical classification in comparison study since 2002. The AMEICC participated by ASEAN countries and Japan held for five times till 2006. The Fifth AMEICC held in June 2006 which decided to invite China and South Korea to become the member. In 2007, there was held two EAMS in Japan and Laos respectively. This series processes and results of work laid a good foundation for the establishment of the East Asian industrial statistics information exchange platform.
The purpose of this meeting is: on the basis of the last meeting, continue to explore statistical classification in manufacturing sector, to study how the manufacturing classification translate into the United Nations International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC), and form the classification standards of data processing for the countries. In addition, the meeting will also exchange the situation of national business statistics and economic census. In a total of more than 40 statistical experts and scholars from the East Asia region such as Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Chinese counterparts attended the meeting.
