ISLAMABAD: Senate’s Standing Committee on Statistics has directed to the FBR entity Pakistan Revenue Automation Pvt Limited (PRAL) to compile the data in international USD standard instead of PKR and recommended the introduction of a mechanism to improve the quality of Pakistani products in the international market.
The Senate Standing Committee on Statistics was presided over by Senator Dr. Jehanzeb Jamaldini and the meeting was attended by Senator Nighat Mirza, Senator Lt. Gen (r) Abdul Qayyum, Leader of the House, Senator Syed Shibli Faraz and senior officers from the Ministry of Statistics, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and the State Bank.
The meeting commenced with a detailed briefing of the Ministry of Statistics on the coding system in Pakistan and classification based on international taxonomy.
It was revealed that a mere 20 per cent data was retrieved from Karachi which is the hub of Industrial and Economic activity. These details came up while discussing issues of data compilation with FBR and State Bank of Pakistan.
While discussing details of data acquisition from Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited (PRAL) Leader of the House, Senator Shibli Faraz objected to the fact that data was being compiled in terms of PKR instead of international USD standards.
He stressed the need for data compilation in USD and said that data other than in this form could be considered deceptive. Statistics Division Secretary Shaista Sohail briefed the meeting on the procedure and coding system being followed to collect data from the industrial sector in Pakistan.
The secretary informed the meeting that ‘Izak Coding’ system is being followed all over the world for data collection and Pakistan has made its own ‘Pakistan Industrial Classification’ to collect statistics from its industrial sector.
She said that population consensus would be conducted on industrial manufacturing in three provinces, adding that the Sindh industrial sector was not cooperating with the Statistics Division.
Shaista added that letters have been dispatched to the relevant departments of provinces in this connection. She said the absence of inspectors at the grassroots level and a lack of supervisory culture in the industrial sector has left a negative image of Pakistan in the international market.
