OBSECREI

Neda: Data from NSO, NSCB are world-class

By CAI U. ORDINARIO
Business Mirror Amid questions raised on the reliability of the governments economic data, the National Economic and Development Authority asserted that independence and high standards are being implemented at the National Statistics Office and the National Statistical Coordination Board .
In a statement, NEDA Acting Director General Augusto Santos assured the public that the data-collection processes of the NSO and the NSCB conform to international standards.
"The NSCB Interagency Committees which approve operational definitions, data-collection methodologies and estimation of statistics have members from the different stakeholders, including the private sector. Mechanisms on checking data consistency are also in place. Hence, insinuations on the reliability of data are not warranted," Santos said.
Santos also stressed that the high-growth sectors in the National Income Accounts are also those with higher employment growth as shown by the results of the Labor Force Survey.
"While it can be seen that employment growth is lower in 2007, the higher employment growth in the preceding year might have actually supported growth in year 2007," the acting NEDA chief said.
Santos added the 25-percent growth in construction in 2007, for instance, has contributed in the generation of jobs for the sector, thus, increasing its employment to 6 percent in the same year.
Further, the NSO said in a statement that the Family Income and Expenditures Survey data on expenditures and the personal consumption expenditures estimates are different.
The NSO explained that the differences lie in the coverage, concepts, definitions, methodologies and data-related factors, particularly the underreporting/overreporting of income/expenditures in the FIES.
Santos also said the NSO and NSCB have been very transparent and their web sites, where regular publications are available to the public, have always explained how the agency generates national accounts data.
He stressed that the NSCB also provides the public with the System of National Accounts Technical Notes and metadata to guide users in understanding the concepts and methodologies involved in the estimation of the gross domestic product .
Among those who made recent comments about the governments economic data was University of the Philippines economist and former NEDA director general Dr. Felipe Medalla, who openly questioned the governments ability to come up with credible statistics due to lack of funding and autonomy.
Medalla said that while the government has announced that its GDP in 2007 was a 31-year high at 7.3 percent, this is not exactly accurate.
He said the NIA was unreliable since it does not corroborate the results of the FIES. He said that PCE in recent years have been higher than expected, which contradicts the 2006 FIES results which showed that expenditure of families increased by 3.6 percent, while income only increased by 1.7 percent.
Medalla noted that the average growth rate of the PCE from 2004 to 2006 was the highest in the last 20 years, but the growth rate of GNI net of taxes or GNP adjusted for changes in the international terms of trade and taxes, was the lowest during the last 10 years.
He said that to become more reliable, the government must increase its spending for statistics gathering since the government spent "too little" on this and yet official government data is considered the backbone of government planning.
Medalla also recommended that statistical agencies should be "left alone" and allowed to act independently so that data will not be marred.