STATIN to Host Meeting of Advisory Group on Statistics

The Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) will be hosting a meeting of the Advisory Group on Statistics, which will involve the participation of heads of agencies from other statistics offices in the region.

The meeting, which is one of STATIN’s activities to celebrate its 70^th anniversary, will be held at the agency’s head office at 7 Cecelio Avenue in Kingston from June 29 to July 1.

Speaking at a JIS ‘Think Tank’ on June 15, Director General at STATIN, Carol Coy, said the meeting is to discuss and highlight best practices, concerns and issues within the sector.

“This group is tasked with implementing and providing statistics to governments. The meeting is held twice per year in different countries at different times, so it is Jamaica’s turn to host,” she explained.

Representatives are expected from Suriname, Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago, Belize, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Grenada and Bermuda.

In October, the agency will host an Open Day, where schools, various entities and the general public will visit the organisation to learn about its role and services.

“We will also be launching the Jamaica Industrial Classification later in the year, which looks at activities in various categories or industries, such as manufacturing,” Miss Coy pointed out.

She added that information and communications technology (ICT) is a category that will be added.

“There was never an ICT industry but because technology has changed and because the world economy has changed, we are now revising our classification systems to be able to capture this information that is required by our stakeholders,” Miss Coy said.

“We will also be having stakeholder meetings to gather concerns and to find out if the statistics we are producing are satisfying their needs and wants… so we will be starting with a session looking at our labour force statistics and later on in the year, we will be looking at the economic statistics,” she explained.

STATIN was established in 1946 as the Central Bureau of Statistics with the passage of the Statistics Act.

With further amendments to the Act in 1955 and 1984, the entity was renamed the Department of Statistics and Statistical Institute of Jamaica, respectively.

The functions of the Institute include collecting, compiling, analysing and publishing statistical information relating to the commercial, industrial, social, economic and general activities and condition of the people.