The Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Bank Negara Malaysia on data sharing arrangements today.

DOSM was represented by the Chief Statistician Malaysia, Puan Hajah Wan Ramlah Wan Abdul Raof, while the Deputy Governor Dato' Ooi Sang Kuang signed the MoU on behalf of Bank Negara Malaysia.

In an effort to further enhance data collection efficiency, DOSM through the data sharing arrangements can leverage on the aggregated administrative data collected by other agencies instead of relying heavily on surveys and census. Data collected will be used for compilation of economic and social indicators. The data will be shared with other government agencies to facilitate them in planning, monitoring and policy formulation.

Bank Negara Malaysia is the first agency to sign a MoU under the inter-agency data sharing arrangement initiated by DOSM. This MoU would pave the way for more collaborative efforts between DOSM and other government agencies with the aim of achieving a higher level of efficiency and effectiveness in terms of data collection and dissemination.

As part of the collaborative initiative, DOSM and Bank Negara Malaysia had implemented the Joint Reporting on International Investment Position (IIP) since the first quarter of 2008. This joint initiative has successfully reduced the reporting burden for more than 2,000 companies by requiring these companies to submit only one report instead of two and it had improved the submission rate to 98%. Furthermore, the time lag for the publication of the Annual IIP has been shortened significantly to six months instead of nine months.

Department of Statistics Malaysia and
Bank Negara Malaysia

• See also : Photo of the Chief Statistician of Malaysia, Puan Hjh. Wan Ramlah Wan Abdul Raof and the Deputy Governor of Bank Negara Malaysia Dato' Ooi Sang Kuang exchanging documents during the signing of MOU on Data Sharing Arrangements between the Department of Statistics Malaysia and Bank Negara Malaysia. [High resolution image : JPG, 737KB]