Finance Minister chaired a meeting of Data producers regarding coordination of statistical data
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar chaired a meeting of Data producers regarding coordination of statistical data at the Finance Ministry today.
Finance Minister talked about the inconsistency and discrepancies of statistical data and lack of coordination among the data producing institutions of the Federal Government. Furthermore he said that due to this incongruity in the data many institutions along with the International donor agencies do not get to collect reliable and verified data, used for various purposes.
The Finance Minister directed all the data producing bodies, including Finance Division, Economic Affairs Division, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Security Exchange Commission of Pakistan and the Regulatory bodies to coordinate with each other to have a consensus on a single verified statistical data system. He also advised these institutions to conduct regular meetings among themselves to monitor and review the whole process of data collection and verification.
Chairman Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) Mr. Asif Bajwa also emphasized on the credibility of the statistical data. Former Governor of State Bank of Pakistan Ishrat Hussain accentuated upon the requirement of primary producers of statistical data, as all the data available is of secondary nature.
The Finance Minister said that our government has already decided to issue quarterly data instead of publishing yearly data. He also informed participants of the meeting that during third review, IMF agreed to revise their GDP growth, and inflation figures for Pakistan, and there is convergence that growth is moving up and inflation remains in single digit. He further added that now we have to make sure that reliable and transparent data is available throughout the country.
The meeting was attended by Ishrat Hussain (former Governor SBP), Asif Bajwa (Chief statistician PBS), members of PBS, officials of the Finance Ministry and people representing reputed educational institutions.
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