Within the framework of its Statistical Capacity Building (StatCaB) Programme, SESRIC organised the Training Course on ‘Big Data Applications on Price Intelligence’ in collaboration with the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) and the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) through an online video conferencing platform on 14-16 June 2022.

Attended by 62 participants from the National Statistical Offices (NSOs) of 24 OIC countries, the training course aimed at sharing knowledge and experiences of DOSM in utilising Big Data in the compilation of their Consumer Price Index (CPI) by using Price Intelligence.

The training commenced with the opening remarks by Mrs. Jamaliah Jaafar, Senior Director of Core Team Big Data Analytics at DOSM, who underlined that Big Data has the potential to transform the statistical profession and the role of NSOs in this new era as it improves the quality of price data by allowing statisticians for the development of price basket analysis.

In his speech at the Opening Session, H.E. Amb. Jandos Asanov, Deputy Secretary of ECO, commended the increasing cooperation level between ECO and SESRIC, particularly in the field of official statistics, and highlighted that the experience of member countries in developing and applying methods to take advantage of Big Data is expected to significantly contribute to the overall process of enhancing statistical professional competence in the countries of common membership.

In his Welcoming Remarks, Mr. Fadi Farasin, Assistant Director General of SESRIC, praised the cooperation between DoS Malaysia, ECO, and SESRIC for the organisation of the training and emphasised that innovative approaches to emerging alternative sources of information, namely Big Data, have the potential to improve statistical production by contributing to the production of more timely official statistics. Mr. Farasin also underlined that the Strategic Vision 2030 of the OIC Statistical Commission recognizes slower adoption of new technologies by the NSOs as a challenge in modernising their structures and meeting the needs of data users, and accordingly SESRIC organizes capacity development activities to contribute to the efforts of NSOs of OIC countries in advancing their knowledge on themes related to Big Data.

After the Opening Session, the training continued with presentations and discussions delivered by Ms. Maslina Samsudin, Deputy Director; Ms. Mazliana Mustapa, Principal Assistant Director; Mr. Wan Ahmad Ridhuan Wan Jaafar, Senior Assistant Director; and Ms. Noradilah Adnan, Assistant Director at the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM), on the following topics:

• Overview on Big Data
• Compilation of CPI in Malaysia
• Price Intelligence
• Module in Price Intelligence
  • Data Acquisition (Data Crawling)
  • Data Management including Classification and Data Generator
  • Data Visualisation including Demo on Price Intelligence Visualisation using Tableau

The presentations of the training course are available at this link.

The SESRIC StatCaB Programme was initiated in early 2007. It is the flagship capacity development programme of SESRIC. Within the framework of StatCaB Programme, the Centre collects information from the NSOs of OIC member countries through the biennial StatCaB Questionnaire, assesses their statistical training needs and capacities, matches these needs and capacities, and organizes statistical capacity development activities between the beneficiary and provider countries.

For more information on SESRIC Statistical Capacity Building (StatCaB) Programme, please visit: http://www.oicstatcom.org/statcab.php

Photos