SAS® Helps Statistics Agencies Worldwide Better Serve Citizens

UN’s World Statistics Day Highlights Importance of Government Data Collection

CARY, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- For more than 30 years, SAS has helped governments learn more about their countries, improve services for citizens and enhance commerce. Today, statistical agencies around the world will host celebrations that highlight the role of official statistics and the many achievements of national statistical systems. As the leader in business analytics software and services, SAS understands the power of statistics and applauds the UN’s first World Statistics Day.

“Every day, statistics plays a critical role in forming public policy and improving human welfare,” said SAS CEO Jim Goodnight. “SAS joins the world in recognizing and celebrating statistics and the tremendous impact on our lives.”

SAS software is used in 70 government statistics and census agencies around the world, including:

The Australian Bureau of Statistics uses SAS to analyze and insure the integrity of data relied on by thousands of individuals, businesses and government organizations. ABS information assists policy and decision making across all industries and levels of government.

“SAS has been a valuable business partner for ABS for more than 30 years,” said Brian Pink, Australian Statistician. “They have helped us become a world-renowned statistics agency, and we share their enthusiasm for the UN’s effort today.”

The US Census Bureau, with more than 1,000 SAS programmers and 3,000 SAS software users, uses SAS across the bureau in areas such as the 2010 Decennial Census. The Census determines congressional redistricting and allocates several hundred-billion dollars in federal funds to states and local communities. Also, the Economic Census uses SAS to process more than 100 economic surveys, including manufacturer shipments, inventories and the orders survey.

Statistics Norwaydistributes SAS statistical software to distressed countries, including Eritrea, Albania and Uganda to help them analyze population, housing and income data. Using SAS, these developing nations can analyze data, map the results, identify people’s most pressing needs, and share the resulting information with government and non-government organizations to better target assistance.

For more than 20 years, the Census and Statistics Department (C&SD) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government has used SAS to provide high-quality statistical services that facilitate policymaking and research within the government and in the community.

SAS supports the department in compiling social and economic statistics reports, which involve tremendous volumes of data from a wide variety of sources.C&SD deploys SAS to compile population, employment and wages statistics through the population censuses, General Household Survey, and surveys on labor earnings. In addition, the compilation of trade indices and statistical analyses on Hong Kong’s external trade are also completed using SAS.

The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics has used SAS for nearly three decades to provide officials with the economic and demographic data necessary to understand what is going on in the country and the ability to share information with the public.

The Bavarian State Office for Statistics and Data Processingrecently presented at SAS Forum Germany on how they have used SAS to move from labor-intensive, manual integration of more than 60 Excel and Word sources to a high level of automation and easy, Web-based reporting.

About SAS

SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market. Through innovative solutions delivered within an integrated framework, SAS helps customers at more than 45,000 sites improve performance and deliver value by making better decisions faster. Since 1976 SAS has been giving customers around the world THE POWER TO KNOW^®. SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. ® indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Copyright © 2010 SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved.

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Source: SAS