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Financial News

Aug 2015 Financial News

CSO gets new home...launches refashioned website

Aug 03, 2015

The inauguration of the Central Statistical Office’s (CSO) new office on Frederick Street, Port-of-Spain, and the launch of its new website signal a new phase in its operations, Planning Minister Bhoe Tewarie said yesterday at a ceremony at the CSO’s new head office.

“This is an important new phase in the life of the CSO. This spanking new five-story building will house the entire CSO. I think you all know there have been problems in the last year and a half. Some staff have already moved and some have not yet moved in and that has to do with the preparation of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). That staff is still on Park Street. They have not moved yet because they are involved in the preparation of the budget and in October will be moving here,” he said.

He said the building on Frederick Street has been leased for the next five years.

At the function, the minister launched the CSO’s new website, www.cso.gov.tt, which he said is more user friendly and will provide data in a timely fashion.

Tewarie said he wrote to international agencies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Moody’s Rating Agency to ask them for the kind of data they need from T&T.

He said he received a letter from Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, who said the institution is willing to work with T&T to produce GDP statistics not only annually but on a quarterly basis.

Letters were also sent to the T&T Chamber of Industry of Commerce, the regional chambers, the Energy Chamber, the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers’ Association (TTMA) as well as other local organisations on what they need from the CSO.

“I am sure the IMF, Moody’s and other institutions would be very pleased with the progress we have made and we have chartered a clear course with a timeline,” he said.

Tewarie also that the CSO will be established as a new autonomous body.

“It will be very different from now where it is a division and was moved from ministry to ministry. What is needed is a national statistical institution that is functioning autonomously. The restructuring is to be based on work conducted by consultants from Statistics Sweden who produced a series of reports,” he said.

Director of Statistics at the CSO, Sterling Chadee, who spoke at the ceremony, said CSO statistics will now be updated much faster than in the past and the quality will be better and said the CSO has returned to full operation.

“We have removed the backlog in the labour force statistics. In 2011, it lagged by four quarters or a year. Now we are in 2015 and we have produced the full quarterly statistics. We have also begun to address the backlog in the trade data and now have trade data up to March 2015.

“The CSO now produces timely, relevant statistics to support planning and development. Right now our policymakers can understand the economic fundamentals such as inflation, GDP, trade, retail sales, production in 2015 not with old data but with up-to-date data,” he said.

 

Source:
Trinidad Guardian
Saturday August 1, 2015

http://www.guardian.co.tt/business/2015-08-01/cso-gets-new-home