The Central Statistical Office of Saint Lucia has launched a new and more user friendly website.

The site was launched with the aim to conform to the fundamental principles of official statistics, and in particular, to make available useful official statistics on an impartial basis in order to honour citizens’ entitlement to public information.

The website will also provide data users and members of the public with more immediate access to the information that is produced, as well as explanations on the statistical series that will be published from time to time.

In redeveloping the website, the Director of Statistics in the Central Statistical Office of Saint Lucia, Edwin St. Catherine, said the focus has remained on ensuring that the data formats used can be easily re-used as inputs by users for the creation of other content helpful to policymaking, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

“So for example when you go to the website and you see an interesting statistic you can immediately download the associated table that supports the statistic. So if you see for example that the economy grew by 3 percent in 2017, when you click the growth rate you will see the whole table upon which the 3 percent was generated. In other words, you will see the growth rate of all the component sectors within the Saint Lucian economy that generated the 3 percent growth rate.”

The format is user friendly. Individuals seeking to use the available data can log onto the website and simply download the files.

The Central Statistical Office of Saint Lucia takes very seriously its responsibility to produce accurate, reliable and timely information on Saint Lucia. It also promises to strive to use the website as one of the main vehicles by which the department disseminates key statistics, indicators, and publications on trade, labour, economic growth, inflation, and other social, economic, and demographic information. The department has been utilizing social media as a means of engaging the public.

“We have associated the website with a Facebook page and we have been sharing statistical facts about Saint Lucia, like how many people visit Saint Lucia, how many eggs are produced in Saint Lucia, and we have seen quite a bump in the amount of interactions we’ve received on Facebook since we launched the website.”

The website was created with the assistance of Statistics Canada, a government agency commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. Individuals seeking to access statistical data can log on to the website at www.stats.gov.lc