OREANDA-NEWS. April 09, 2010. A regular meeting of FBK Economic Club Can We Trust Official Statistics was held in Moscow. Lots of questions traditionally emerge towards data of State Statistics Service in Russia; moreover, if earlier ordinary citizens would be surprised at data on inflation, at the moment even experts are surprised at growth of industrial production and GDP.

Secondly, when analyzing a big number of multidirectional showings it is reasonable to be guided by indicator-showings (see pic.). Igor Nikolaev referred to such showings dynamics of investments in fixed assets, difference between credit rate of commercial banks and refinancing rate of Central Bank as well as number of unemployed per vacancy according to ILO. “It is hard for me to imagine how production can grow if investments in fixed assets are falling”, Igor Nikolaev noted. “Our researches show that there is hard interdependence: for 1 RUR of GDP there are 16-17 kopecks of investments in fixed assets. But this is not happening at the moment! So it would be wrong to refer everything to crisis.” The existing gap between the Central Bank’s refinancing rate and rate on credits of commercial banks to non-financial organizations (as of March, 1 it was 4.2.p.p.), according to expert, this shows that bankers assess economic risks to be rather high. Besides, according to Igor Nikolaev, the evidence of deterioration of economic situation is increasing number of unemployed per vacancy, from 24 persons on January 1, 2010 to 28 persons on February,1. “This shows that entities have no plans regarding production development”, the expert is sure.

“It is very difficult to estimate situation in the country according to current statistical data”, Irina Maskakova, Deputy Head of Federal Service for State Statistics admitted. According to her, it is almost impossible to put together showings, while each of them represents a certain phenomenon in economy. “Lots of factors influence this: different databases, different methodologies, classifications etc. To combine all data, you should build models which are so far unavailable in Russian statistics”, the expert told. In terms of reprimands regarding changes in methods of calculation of industrial production, Irina Masakova noted that this decision had been taken long before crisis and is associated with harmonization of statistical accounting with countries of the EU. Moreover, Irina Masakova emphasized that soon Russian Statistical Service will provide data on industrial production in past years recalculated under new methods. On the whole, as the expert noted, “statistics is very expensive activity, but development of state is impossible without it, in its turn, statistics depends on resources of the state: financial, HR, including understanding of interaction between departments”.

Sergey Aleksashenko, Director of Macroeconomic Research of SU Higher School of Economics agrees. According to him, quality of statistics is greatly determined by request created by government. “If authorities do not want to know about position of people and country on the whole, it is very difficult for statistical department to find independent sources of financing. Russian Statistical Service understands best of all what should be done and which methodologies should be developed, however funds are needed to do it”, Aleksashenko noted. According to him, reprimands in terms of work of Russian Statistical Service have accumulated because two global changes overlapped: economic crisis and replacement of methodology for calculation of industrial production index. “Anyway, we do not have another statistics”, Aleksashenko summed up.

“I trust Russian statistics not because it is perfect but because it is very difficult to calculate absolutely adequately all showings in such big country”, Evgeny Yasin, Scientific Supervisor of State University Higher School of Economics stated. He is sure that there are no grounds for not trusting principle statistical showings (e.g. inflation rate). According to the expert, statistics has certain inaccuracy, so any other measuring does.Among the principle tasks of Russian Statistical Service, Evgeny Yasin envisages presentation of comparable economic ranges to expert community. “Statistics is the only opportunity to learn something about the state of affairs in the country. Though Russian Statistical Service should enhance its authority and dictate methodology”, Evgeny Yasin concluded.