The National Statistical Office (NSO) will launch a mobile app in January as a new tool to provide data to the public.
Called Thai Stat, the app serves as another channel for Thais to easily access information from the NSO, in addition to its website at www.nso.go.th.
The move is in line with the government's mission to have a more precise database of the economy and society, as the NSO was assigned to update its existing information storage and report the data to the centralised information management system.
Pichet Durongkaveroj, the digital economy and society minister, said the app will initially be available for download on Android, with the iOS platform done by the middle of next year.
The app will have six main menus including key statistical information on indicators for the country and major provinces in the form of reports, graphs and infographics.
The statistics cover population, labour, household income and expenditures and education.
Recently, the NSO reported its survey related to usage of ICT for people over six years old in 2017, contrasted with its previous survey in 2013. The report showed the number of personal computer (PC) users declined from 35% in 2013 to 30.8% in 2017, while internet users increased from 28.9% to 53%.
The number of mobile users rose from 73% to 88.2% of the population, with 93.7% of internet users accessing it via smartphone, 45.4% on a PC, 20.8% on a notebook computer, and 10.2% by tablets.
Mr Pichet said the NSO has to create more accurate and useful information for state agencies and the private sector as well as eliminate undercounted groups for important information about the domestic economy.
Resolving the undercounted information problem is in line with the government's project to set up a centralised big data management system.
"Both state agencies and the private sector will benefit from accurate statistical information such as disaster management and prediction of economic trends," he said.
More accurate information, especially economic figures, will help attract new investment from global firms, said Mr Pichet.
He said there is a lot of undercounted information and it damages the country, such as the overall value of R&D investment of major industry sectors.
Undercounted R&D investment in major industries inevitably creates a negative effect on the country's ranking the World Economic Forum index.
"The NSO has difficulty in collecting precise information in many areas that are seen as business secrets, however we can improve our capability in statistical inference and estimation systems to generate more accurate information," Mr Pichet said.
In addition, the NSO needs to transform a great deal of existing analogue statistical information to digital format to serve the demands of other state agencies as well as the private sector, he said.
