Page 490 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 2

IPS2339 Ning Jizhe

Opportunities and challenges facing China’s
Official Statistics
Ning Jizhe
Commissioner of the National Bureau of Statistics of China

Abstract
Proceeding from the importance of official statistics on modern state
governance, the paper elaborates on the opportunities and challenges facing
China’s official statistics over recent years and the way forward. The paper
holds that China’s official statistics is developing on the fast track, facing
unprecedented opportunities provided by the demand for modernization of
state governance system and governance capacity, the demands for statistical
data from all sectors of society, the development and application of modern
information network technology, and the ever-growing international
exchange and cooperation. Meanwhile, the governments at various levels
pose increasingly higher demands upon statistical indicators and statistical
data; the respondents are growing in number; and the application of modern
statistical approaches is relatively backward. All these constitute new
challenges to official statistics. To respond to the new requirements under
new circumstances, Chinese official statistical offices will endeavor to build and
improve a statistical system conducive to high-quality economic development,
deepen the reform on system of national accounts, advance information
disclosure, data sharing and statistical analysis and interpretation, organize the
construction of statistical cloud infrastructure, strengthen statistical
supervision according to law, and implement monitoring on the statistical
indicators of the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, so as to make due
contributions to the development and progress of official statistics in the
world.

Keywords
Opportunities; Challenges; Reform

1. Introduction
Official statistics constitutes an important basis for macro control and
informed governance of the country and the ability of collecting and analyzing
statistical information represents the governance capability of a modern
country. Throughout the world, digital governance has increasingly become
the major means of state governance. We always need to refer to authentic,
accurate, complete and timely data when it comes to make judgments about
the economic situation, develop policies for national macro control, or

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