Several experts have raised concerns over the great disparity in announced statistics; however, an official from the Statistics General Office of Vietnam said that the problem is not as serious as their assessments.

Deputy head of the General Statistics Office, Nguyen Bich Lam 

At a recent conference in Hanoi, Vuong Dinh Hue, Head of Economic Central Commission voiced his concerns about the accuracy of statistical figures, saying that, “Localities across country have seen a remarkable GDP increase, the nation has set a goal to reach GDP growth rate of just 5.5% this year. But the rate this year is unknown to me.”

Also at the event, former deputy PM Vu Khoan said, “Honestly, I do not believe our own statistics. No one can know for sure the exact figure of bad debt. How can analysis take place if we do not have reliable figures?"

Regarding this issue, deputy head of the General Statistics Office, Nguyen Bich Lam, admitted the statistical disparity. He, however, said that the disparity is not as serious as some experts claim.

Lam explained that the disparity is attributed to different information sources. Over recent years, Vietnam has seen a sharp rise in the number enterprises. Many companies have their business registration license in one locality, but in reality they operate in many different localities.

He added that many enterprises are not active in providing information in a specific way, as required by statistical agencies.

Additionally, there is still some disagreement in applying statistical methods between the General Statistics Office and ministries and agencies in terms of the poverty rate, trained labourer rate and the number of enterprises.

He emphasised that the disparity in statistics is a problem that been around for many years.

According to Nguyen Bich Lam, Deputy Head of the Statistics Office of Vietnam, to deal with the situation, from 2016, the GDP of the entire country and Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) will be calculated and announced.

“We have been actively trying to ease the statistics disparity in GDP,” Lam added.

Recently, the office has sent five delegations to Hanoi, Hai Duong, Khanh Hoa, Dong Nai and Lam Dong to work with the local statistics board to check provinces’ GDP statistics for 2011.

The results have indicated that the reviewed GDP of these localities are 2 – 5.5% lower than the reported statistics. This is a foundation for the office to re-check the whole country’s GDP between 2006 and 2010.

The review will be continued from now to 2015, aiming to mitigate the disparity in GDP statistics figure in localities and to serve as an important foundation for the nation’s socio-economic development for the 2016-2020 period.

Lam noted that, “We will instruct our agencies to tighten control over the quality of information for official statistics and set stricter regulations in statistical figure and information collection.”