The 14th Meeting of the Heads of National Statistical Offices of BRICS Countries was held virtually on October 11 in Beijing. Mr. Kang Yi, Commissioner of the National Bureau of Statistics of China(NBS); Mr. Eduardo Rios Neto, President of Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics; Mr. Sergey Galkin, Head of Russian Federal State Statistics Service; Mr. Arun Kumar Biswas, Director General(Statistics) of Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation of India and Mr. Risenga Maluleke, Statistician-General of Statistics South Africa; attended and addressed the meeting. Mr. Stefan Schweinfest, Director of United Nations Statistics Division(UNSD) and Ms. Fu Haishan, Director of World Bank Development Data Group were invited to deliver speeches at the meeting. The meeting fully implemented the 14th BRICS Summit Beijing Declaration and called for continuous efforts to strengthen statistical cooperation of BRICS countries. The meeting released the BRICS Joint Statistical Publication 2022, an outcome compiled by the NBS with contributions from other BRICS national statistical offices(NSOs). The publication is a comprehensive reflection of the economic and social development of BRICS countries and serves as an important information reference for cooperation and exchange among the members. 

Kang Yi remarked that statistical cooperation is an important part of the BRICS cooperation mechanism. Over the past years, NSOs of BRICS countries have held meetings of the heads regularly to discuss implementation of the major statistical tasks announced in the declarations of BRICS Summits, studied effective ways to address new problems and challenges facing the development of statistics and promoted statistical cooperation and exchange. Tangible results have been achieved in serving the all-around, multi-level BRICS cooperation and promoting the economic and social development of BRICS countries. 

Kang Yi pointed out that this year’s meeting, themed “Application of Big Data in Official Statistics”, was a pragmatic action to implement the spirit of the 14th BRICS Summit and an important move for official statistics to better adapt to the development and changes of modern information technology. Over the past years, the NBS has fully implemented the national big data strategy and actively promoted innovative application of big data in official statistics, achieving remarkable progress. He also noted that the NBS is ready to work with BRICS NSOs to further deepen the exchange and practical cooperation on the application of big data in statistics and promote the development of statistical work in BRICS countries, so as to better serve the cooperation and economic and social development of BRICS countries. 

Participants of BRICS NSOs, UNSD and World Bank Development Data Group fully affirmed the achievements made in BRICS statistical cooperation in the past year and expressed appreciation for the contribution of the NBS as the Chair. They said they would continue to join hands to deepen statistical cooperation and work towards more practical cooperation results. Participants exchanged experiences and had discussion on the theme “Application of Big Data in Official Statistics”. Representative from Statistics South Africa presented the plan for the 15th Meeting of the Heads of National Statistical Offices of BRICS Countries. 

(Source: National Bureau of Statistics of China)