Page 33 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 2

IPS178 Kuniko M.
the REI are not official statistics but economic indicators for conjunctural
assessment, of which compilation method and data sources are changed
flexibly for quality improvements on an ongoing basis.
Development of these indicators provides another example of the synergy
effects of internal feedback between the research and statistics divisions at the
RSD. Both economic indicators use the Corporate Goods Price Index (CGPI)
extensively, which is produced by the Price Statistics Division (PSD) in the RSD,
as deflators. In the course of developing these indicators, economists at the
ERD asked extensively about details of CGPI, for example, regarding its
definition, calculation method, and items surveyed, so that the CGPI could be
used properly in the CAI and the REI. Such close communication between
statistics compiler and user improved the economic indicators compiled by
the research divisions. At the same time, statisticians at the PSD better
recognized user needs and detected clues for the improvement in quality of
the statistics they compile.

3-3. Contribution to the government’s statistics reform
In December 2016, the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy decided on
the Statistics Reform, which was then endorsed in May 2017 by the Statistics
Reform Promotion Council, where the Governor of the Bank is a member and
contributes to its discussions. The Statistics Reform has been created with the
aim of building EBPM (Evidence-based policy making), improving economic
statistics to enhance GDP statistics, and addressing other issues faced by the
statistical system of Japan.
In response to the Statistics Reform, the “Master Plan Concerning the
Development of Official Statistics” (hereafter referred to as the Master Plan),
which is currently in its third version, starting in April 2018 and lasting until
March 2024, has been updated. The Master Plan was firstly created in March
2009 based on the Statistics Act in order to promote comprehensive and
systematic measures for the development of official statistics. The third Master
Plan covers issues relating to important official statistics, such as GDP statistics,
Consumer Price Index (CPI), and the Business Register. The Statistics
Commission, comprised of statistics academics and statistics users, and
established in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in
accordance with the Statistics Act, is tasked with the deliberation of technical
detail and the implementation of the Master Plan. In addition, as in the
Statistics Reform, the Statistics Commission has had its function strengthened
from the perspective of improving autonomy, mobility, expertise, impartiality,
and neutrality (e.g., develop function of proposals, recommendations and
follow-up). The Director-General of the Research and Statistics Department of
the Bank regularly participates in the Statistics Commission in a personal

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