AI Technology for Central Register of Establishments and Balance of Payments Statistics

Modernising Balance of Payments Statistics

The Census and Statistics Department (C&SD) compiles Hong Kong’s Balance of Payments (BoP) statistics mainly through statistical surveys, but growing financial market complexity increases data users’ demand for timely, granular and high quality data. To address this, C&SD has integrated financial market data and AI into its compilation processes.

By leveraging extensive financial market datasets, C&SD can access corporate financial information and financial securities data beyond statistical survey coverage, thus improving data coverage, compilation efficiency and accuracy. Moreover, large language models automate data extraction and analysis, hence streamlining manual tasks. This multi-source, AI-enabled approach shortens processing time, strengthens data validation and enhances the quality of BoP statistics, ultimately providing data users with more timely and reliable statistical figures.

Innovating Maintenance of Central Register of Establishments

In addition, C&SD has also modernised the maintenance of its Central Register of Establishments (CRE). CRE is a computerised database containing information on economic activities of establishments in Hong Kong and it serves as a sampling frame for establishment-type surveys conducted by C&SD. Traditionally, when new establishments do not respond to the relevant C&SD survey for collecting the required information for updating CRE, on-site visits will be conducted to assist them to complete the questionnaire.

To improve efficiency, C&SD introduced an AI solution to search and interpret online information, determining the business status and nature of establishments, and feeding the results into a machine learning industry classification model. Using ensemble methods to classify establishments to the corresponding Hong Kong Standard Industrial Classification codes automatically, this innovative approach helps reduce manual coding and on-site follow-ups by 10%-20%, freeing up some staff to focus on more complex tasks.

C&SD will continue to harness the transformative potential of data science and AI to better serve the information needs of the government, businesses and citizens, whilst upholding the highest standards of statistical excellence.

Please click here for more details on C&SD’s usage of data science and AI to enhance statistical services.

[Acknowledgement to the C&SD for providing material for the story.]