GTZ helps FBS improve credibility of economic data

Financial and technical assistance from donor agencies has helped Pakistan managers improve the authenticity and broaden the base of economic data. "There has been a lot of improvement in our working during past few years with money and technical know-how coming in from abroad," Statistics Division Secretary Asad Elahi said.
He was referring to a Federal Bureau of Statistics project with the German Technical Cooperation - GTZ. The GTZ is helping the FBS with finances and technical support for capacity building of its field as well as desk employees for over three years.
The German agency has provided the FBS with motorcycles and computers to help field employees collect data speedily. It has also financed the computerisation of various departments of the bureau. A top German expert in national accounts, Bernd Struck is carrying forward the initiative. He is permanently affiliated with the project as principal advisor since 2004.
Talking to Business Recorder, Struck said the agency had been and would continue to extend financial as well as technical assistance to help FBS improve the credibility of its statistics. There has been a lot of criticism on the working of the official agency responsible to furnish key economic figures including prices and growth indices.
Opposition parties and independent economists always blame the FBS for producing fudged figures under the government pressures. But Elahi said the situation was not like that. "People criticise us because of lack of understanding how statistics work."
He said the FBS was expanding the database through capacity building of workers, provision of modern technology and conducting more studies and surveys through its own staff and in collaboration with other institution and private sector. The secretary claimed the way the FBS works was comparable to the operations of any international agency involved in the same trade.
Struck stressed the need for improving FBS working and taking it to a level where it could be compared with top world institutions. He suggested vocational trainings to help professionals understand this and other such issues.
Meanwhile, a FBS training wing head, Muhammad Younis said 58 training courses had been conducted since early 2004 to train more than a thousand officials. Experts from different donor agencies like DFID, UNFPA, SIAP, GTZ, WTO conduct these courses.