KUALA LUMPUR: The government is reviewing the national statistical system to bring forth the full potential of data towards effective public service delivery, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Abdul Rahman Dahlan said today.
"We've started working on several initiatives to produce data and statistics to meet the policy needs in the 11th Malaysia Plan," he said at the launch of the latest Malaysia Economic Monitor by the World Bank today.
"The increasing dynamism and sophistication of users' expectations required more frequent and niche-area statistics."
Data collection was expanded to include socio-economic statistics and derived statistics.
Almost 300 lines of statistical studies are produced annually.
From 1949 until 2008, the Statistics Department produced 66 studies relating to economy, population and social statistics.
Abdul Rahman said synergies between traditional statistics and new data sources are made possible through Big Data Analytics.
The department has kick-started big data analytics in the area of statistical business register, price intelligence and merchandise trade statistics.
The 16th Edition of the MEM identifies the fragmentation of data and institutional responsibilities for data as a key challenge.
There is a need to have a coordinating mechanism to facilitate more open data-sharing and data collaboration while also improving interactions between data users and data producers.