A new partnership could lead to more timely and accurate Chinese economic data
E-conomics: Alibaba employees collecting data Image: Alibaba |
China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has announced it will work closely with the nation’s largest telecommunications and online retail firms to compile official data.
The NBS will use the data to analyse economic trends, monitor inflation and the consumer price index and make other economic forecasts.
NBS’ chief statistician Xian Zude claims the increased cooperation will greatly improved efficiency and accuracy when gathering data, while significantly reducing the bureau’s workload.
Among the online firms participating are Baidu, China’s largest online search engine, and Alibaba - the nation’s biggest online retailer by some margin.
Data gathered from e-commerce firms will enable the government to track price fluctuations in real time, which may result in more responsive economic policymaking.
Nonetheless, processing reams of data will provide its own challenges. Baidu, for example, processes over 5bn queries each day, according to senior researcher Huang Linli. The government is keen to expand its data collection further still to include activity on social networking sites.