Luanda - The Angolan Agriculture minister, Afonso Pedro Canga, on Tuesday in Luanda said that his department and the government have made the commitment to work to produce trustworthy statistical data, aiming at making decisions based on real facts.

Pedro Canga said so at the launching ceremony of the “Countrystat Angola”, which is a statistical information system that will improve the access to quality statistics in the agricultural and food sectors, at national, regional and local levels.

To the minister, Countrystat Angola is an important tool in decision-making, research and planning, as well as for consultants and students.

“We need to have trustworthy official data, and this information has to be accessed by all and used in their daily works, so we reiterate our commitment to continue working towards having trustworthy statistics, reason why this task had the participation of representatives of several governmental departments, producers and provincial governments” he said.

According to him, for those who take decisions on some matters, mainly relating to national production, aiming at reducing the imports, it is paramount to have at the disposal a database that enables one to make safe decisions.

     
He also revealed that his department has been working with the Ministry of Commerce, to find out what the country can import and what should not be imported.

“We are working to increase national production, with a view to reducing importations, but these decisions have to be based on real facts”, emphasised the minister.

 
As regards consumers, Pedro Canga said it is important that these economic agents can have access to statistical information, so they have a greater freedom of choice and can acquire products of their convenience.

 
 Countrystat is a project developed by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), applied at national level, aiming to collect and harmonise information available in several sources and place them in a single database that can be accessed by everyone.

 
Countrystat Angola is an initiative financed by the Bill&Melinda Gates Foundation. Besides Angola, the project is being implemented in 16 other countries in sub-Sahara Africa.