LIPIS: The national celebration of World Statistics Day 2025 was held in Sungai Koyan to heighten public awareness about statistics for national development.
Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said organising the celebration here provided rural communities an opportunity to understand how data and statistics plan health, education and employment facilities.
He emphasised that statistics form the foundation for policy decisions impacting people’s well-being and rural development sustainability.
“Hospitals and schools are not built spontaneously but are planned based on birth data and educational needs recorded by the Department of Statistics Malaysia,” he explained.
Mohd Uzir highlighted Malaysia’s global excellence, ranking first for official data availability, openness and accessibility through digital initiatives like OpenDOSM.
He spoke after the official launch by Pahang Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Wan Rosdy Wan Ismail at Laman Sejahtera Jelai in Sungai Koyan.
DOSM’s latest innovations include a life expectancy calculator and Minimum Acceptable Living Expenses tool assessing costs based on family profile, age and location.
“Such data helps employers and employees understand local living costs, supporting balanced dialogue on wages and productivity,” he said.
DOSM is developing the TANYA DOSM mobile application for easier public access to official data interactively.
Sungai Koyan was chosen as venue to focus on the growing rural community through the ‘Statistics the Pulse of Life’ themed celebration.
Various programmes ran for three days including a Datathon competition, debates and community engagement with university students and local residents.
The celebration featured the Prime Minister’s Forum on Islamic Affairs about AI and statistics benefits for the Muslim community.
It served as a knowledge-sharing platform on artificial intelligence potential in national data collection and analysis. – Bernama
