Australia and Singapore in E-commerce statistics initiative, Feb 1999

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The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and the Singapore Department of Statistics have established a Working Group to cooperate on the development of electronic commerce statistics.

The Working Group will build on the ongoing exchange of information about statistical collections in electronic commerce. It aims to improve the range and quality of data produced by each organisation and help produce internationally comparable data to meet new demands for statistics in this rapidly changing field.

Activities already being planned by the Working Group include a workshop of experts from the two statistical agencies early next year and an international "cutting edge" conference on "The Measurement of Electronic Commerce" in Singapore on 6-8 December 1999.

The conference, to be held under the auspices of the International Statistical Institute (ISI), will be organised by the Singapore Department of Statistics and the Centre for Management of Innovation and Technopreneurship, National University of Singapore in collaboration with the ABS, the Singapore National Computer Board and the Berkeley Roundtable on the Information Economy, University of California/Berkeley.

The initiative to set up the Working Group is part of a growing relationship between Singapore and Australian governments on information technology (IT) matters. It reflects the challenges facing both statistical organisations in providing meaningful statistics on electronic commerce and other IT issues to their governments, the IT industry and the business community.

Establishment of the Working Group follows the signing of the Australia-Singapore Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on cooperation in IT yesterday, 22 February 1999, by the Australian Deputy Prime Minister, the Hon Tim Fischer MP, and the Singapore Deputy Prime Minister, BG(NS) Lee Hsien Loong. The MOU, signed at the 2nd Singapore-Australia Joint Ministerial Committee Meeting, encourages policy exchanges between government agencies on IT matters.