Statistical Regulation Return Likely

Regulation on statistics produced by private organizations is likely to be reintroduced after seven years since it was scraped in 1999, triggering criticism of excessive government control.

On April 30, Kim Ho-sung, a member of the National Assembly’s Finance and Economic Committee, suggested that the regulation constitutes excessive control on the private sector in his review report on the revised statistics bill presented to the National Assembly at the end of March according to the National Statistical Office (NSO) and the National Assembly.

The revised bill says that private organizations such as associations, financial institutions, or research institutes that are identified as producing nationally significant statistics can be designated “statistics organizations” by the head of the NSO so that the NSO can control the quality of their statistics data.

“The regulation was abolished in 1999 to give freedom of statistics research to private organizations, so a re-enactment of it must be approached in a cautious manner,” said Kim in his report.

According to the regulation, all the statistics produced by designated organizations must be reviewed and approved by the NSO.

A newly introduced article says if a statistics result is thought to be significant, the NSO can recommend that the organization apply for designation. If the organization does not accept the recommendation, the NSO can designate it a “statistics organization.”

“It is necessary to enhance credibility of national statistics and manage statistical data systematically. We do not have any reason or intention to designate private economic research institutes or companies as statistics organizations,” responded Chung Kyu-nam, statistics policy manager at the NSO.

Hyun-Jin Park witness@donga.com