Statistics Centre - Abu Dhabi (SCAD) and the Higher Corporation for Specialised Economic Zones (ZonesCorp) have signed a service level agreement (SLA) governing joint cooperation, data exchange between the two sides and reproduction of ZonesCorp's data.
The agreement will help obviate the duplication of statistical work at the level of Abu Dhabi Emirate and to promote the use of high quality and consistent statistics by policy-makers, and the general public, without prejudice to the competencies of the parties as outlined in their respective establishing laws.
These competencies include, for instance, the right of SCAD to conduct statistical surveys or to run other statistical work within the Emirate of Abu Dhabi at its own discretion.
The SLA was signed at the premises of the SCAD by Butti Ahmed Mohammed bin Butti Al Qubaisi, Director of Statistics Centre - Abu Dhabi and Mohamed Hasan Al Qemzi, CEO, ZonesCorp, in the presence of a number of executive managers and senior officials from the two sides.
SCAD reiterated its keenness to cooperate with the ZonesCorp on improving data collection mechanisms, proper recording of metadata related to the Corporation's scope, noting that the metadata for any given class of information can help in any search, interpretation, or processing the data itself, such as metadata pertaining to population statistics, geographic coverage, sampling, classifications, reference time, methodologies, questionnaires, backgrounds and the scope of work and other topics.
The two sides also agreed to review and adopt a common set of standards for the data to be exchanged, such as data format standards, semantic standards, statistical concepts and data structure definitions. And in order to put this cooperation into effect, each party will provide the other with its available statistics on the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. In this regard SCAD will provide ZonesCorp with templates that will facilitate data collection and metadata recording.
The templates provided by SCAD will enable ZonesCorp to establish, maintain and make available to SCAD a registry of all its data collections, together with the metadata pertaining to each class of the data collected.
Cooperation between the two sides also includes joint preparation of labour force statistics in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, joint participation in various events, workshops and meetings held with other government departments to discuss issues related to labour force statistics or any other statistical studies undertaken in the future.
SCAD and ZonesCorp also stressed the need on the part of both sides to take best advantage of electronic data transmission, renewing their commitment to protect the confidentiality of exchanged data and coordinate with each other to produce such data as to support the Emirate's development efforts.
SCAD's Director General asserted that Statistics Centre - Abu Dhabi is committed to working in close cooperation with its strategic partners, including government and non-government agencies, universities and research centres and all parties concerned with statistical work in the emirate, to enhance cooperation towards maximising the usefulness of the of statistical resources of Abu Dhabi Emirate and building a strong statistical system that is based on sound scientific principles and conforms to the best statistical practices, with the aim of placing Abu Dhabi statistical system by 2013 among the world's top rated statistical systems in terms of the quality, relevance, accuracy and timeliness of the statistics compiled.
Al Qubaisi remarked that SCAD took strong interest in signing this SLA, given the vast experience of ZonesCorp in the regulation, licensing, monitoring and supervision of industrial and economic activities within as well as outside specialized economic zones in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.
He commended the efforts of ZonesCorp in providing a full range of data on the whole spectrum of industrial activities in the Emirate, expressing SCAD's willingness to extend any possible support the Corporation might need to successfully implement its economic strategy.
For his part, ZonesCorp CEO, Mohamed Hasan Al Qemzi, hailed the signing of the SLA, commending the role of Statistics Centre - Abu Dhabi as the body that caters to the needs of all government agencies in the Emirate through the statistical plans prepared by SCAD as the sole entity authorized and responsible for the collection, classification, storage, analysis and dissemination of official statistics and the release of the results of social, demographic, economic, environmental and cultural surveys.
It is worth mentioning that the Statistics Centre - Abu Dhabi plans to sign 43 SLA's that are set to support decision- and policy makers and the business sector to shape their strategic plans on the basis of accurate figures and reliable statistics.