Hong Kong trade statistics go on-line

Trade Development Council launches Business-Stat On-line with Data Warehousing and Web Tools from SAS Institute As Internet penetration continues to expand throughout the Asian region at an exponential rate, more and more organisations are recognising its potential as a fast, interactive way to deliver information. One such organisation is the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, which recently launched Business-Stat On-line using Data Warehousing and Web Enablement technology from SAS Institute. Business-Stat On-line (BSO) is an interactive on-line service allowing companies to access monthly trade figures compiled by the Census and Statistics Department. Information available includes Hong Kongˇ¦s total trade figures, overseas trade, and trade according to specific types of product and service. The Council believes that small and medium-sized companies in particular will benefit from the new service, which will allow them to monitor trends in specific products or markets, track international market share and identify potential export markets. "Before Business-Stat On-line it was far more difficult and time-consuming to access this kind of information," comments Yik Man Wong, Research Information Manager at the Trade Development Council. "We had to extract, convert and process raw data from magnetic tape each month before producing the standard tables. With no on-line viewing facility, we also had to print out 600 tables for internal use, as well as posting thousands of tables to another system for subscribers to access." "Business-Stat On-line makes the whole process far more efficient. Our subscribers can now get the general information they need much faster, and they are free to produce their own reports without having to come back to us." SAS Institute worked with the Trade Development Councilˇ¦s information services and IT departments to provide the final solution, which went live in March this year. The project involved the design and implementation of a Data Warehouse containing five years of export, domestic export and import data broken down by a variety of product and market areas. Other trade service data was also imported into the system using customised tools provided by SAS. The Trade Development Council aims to have ten years of data available in the future, requiring 40 gigabytes of disk space to be available in the Data Warehouse. SAS also developed an extensive number of statistical reports. Over 6000 pre-summarised general tables were created for on-line access, designed as a starting point to Hong Kongˇ¦s general trade performance. In addition, users of the service can view an unlimited number of dynamic reports based on selection criteria such as region, industry and product type. "We looked at a number of proposals but we felt that SAS was the only supplier who could really provide the full solution that we wanted. We were particularly impressed by the flexibility they were able to incorporate into some of the on-line reporting features," says Wong. This highly flexible system of reporting was one of the main features that set the SAS solution apart from other suppliers. The final part of the solution involved the development of registration and administration tools. Subscribers can register for the BSO service on-line free of charge. They are then automatically notified by e-mail of their logon ID and password, allowing them full access to the service. A charge is then made for any reports generated while the user is logged on, with payment made via credit card each month. "We have been delighted with the system since it was launched in March," Wong concludes. "The feedback from our subscribers has also been very positive. They find the system easy to use and definitely appreciate the wider range of information they can now access. This is an excellent example of using the Internet to provide a better service to clients." Business-Stat On-line can be accessed at http://stat.tdc.org.hk. A free trial period enables users to access and create reports on the site for no charge up until the 31 December 1999.