IAOS Conference Convened in Shanghai

The biennial IAOS Conference was held on October 14-16 in Shanghai, the theme is “Reshaping Official Statistics”. Messrs. Ma Jiantang, Commissioner of National Bureau of Statistics; Yang Xiong, Executive Vice Mayor of Shanghai Municipal Government; Olav Ljones, Chairman of International Association of Official Statistics, addressed at the opening ceremony. Messrs. Paul Cheung, Director of Statistics Division, United Nations; and Xu Yifan, Deputy Commissioner of NBS, presented the opening ceremony. Mr. Xie Hongguang, Deputy Commissioner of NBS, presided over the opening ceremony.

Mr. Ma Jiantang expressed his congratulations to the convening of the Conference, and sincere welcome to the participated representatives and experts. He pointed out that the exchange of working experiences on official statistics, explore ways to meet the needs of economic and social development to developing official statistics in the countries are playing an important role of significance on raising the level of official statistics.

Mr. Ma Jiantang said that the statistical exchange and cooperation in the countries of the world will helped to improve the official statistical system. The Chinese Government has hosted an official session of the IAOS Conference in 1990. The IAOS Conference in Shanghai provides a favorable exchange and cooperation platform for the official statisticians in the countries of the world. Chinese official statisticians will take full advantage of this opportunity to learn advanced statistical theories, methods, techniques and experiences from colleagues in the world. Mr. Ma hoped that all the representatives and experts will express their opinions candidly by the in-depth discussions, and enhancing communication in a wide range of intercourses. He believed that the friendship between the statistical communities in the countries will be further enhanced; and through by the strengthening the link between the official statistics in the countries will be promoting the further development of international official statistics by means of the Conference.

After the opening ceremony, Mr. Ma Jiantang gave a report on "Serving the Scientific Development, Innovating China's Official Statistics" in the plenary session, which introduced China’s official statistical agencies paid services to the scientific development, important measurements innovated on official statistics in the recent years, as well as the challenges faced and future visions.

(Mr. Yang Xiong)

(Mr. Olav Ljones)

The Conference was progressed in two ways by plenary and parallel meetings, the reports and intercourses cover the use of administrative data, user needs of official statistics, more effective use of statistical data, sanitation statistics, environmental statistics, and other fields. The Conference will be closed on October 16.

More than 370 domestic and foreign government officials, experts and scholars attended the Conference.