Statistics Centre - Abu Dhabi (SCAD) and the Higher
Corporation for Specialized Economic Zones (ZonesCorp)
have signed a service level agreement (SLA) governing
joint cooperation, data exchange between the two sides
and reproduction of ZonesCorp’s data. The agreement will
help obviate the duplication of statistical work at the level of
Abu Dhabi Emirate and to promote the use of high quality
and consistent statistics by policy-makers and the general
public, without prejudice to the competencies of the parties
as outlined in their respective establishing laws. These
competencies include, for instance, the right of SCAD to
conduct statistical surveys or to run other statistical work
within the Emirate of Abu Dhabi at its own discretion.

The SLA was signed at the premises of the SCAD by HE Butti
Ahmed Mohammed Bin Butti Al Qubaisi, Director of Statistics
Centre - Abu Dhabi and HE Mohamed Hasan Al Qemzi,
CEO, ZonesCorp, in the presence of a number of executive
managers and senior officials from the two sides.

Statistics Centre - Abu Dhabi's reiterated its keenness to
cooperate with the ZonesCorp on improving data collection
mechanisms, proper recording of metadata related to
the Corporation’s scope, noting that the metadata for

any given class of information can help in any search,
interpretation, or processing the data itself, such as
metadata pertaining to population statistics, geographic
coverage,
sampling,
classifications,
reference
time,
methodologies, questionnaires, backgrounds and the scope
of work and other topics.

The two sides also agreed to review and adopt a common
set of standards for the data to be exchanged, such as data
format standards, semantic standards, statistical concepts
and data structure definitions. And in order to put this
cooperation into effect, each party will provide the other
with its available statistics on the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. In
this regard SCAD will provide ZonesCorp with templates
that will facilitate data collection and metadata recording.
The templates provided by SCAD will enable ZonesCorp to
establish, maintain and make available to SCAD a registry of
all its data collections, together with the metadata pertaining
to each class of the data collected.

Cooperation between the two sides also includes joint
preparation of labour force statistics in the Emirate of Abu
Dhabi, joint participation in various events, workshops
and meetings held with other government departments to
discuss issues related to labour force statistics or any other
statistical studies undertaken in the future.

SCAD and ZonesCorp also stressed the need on the part
of both sides to take best advantage of electronic data
transmission, renewing their commitment to protect the
confidentiality of exchanged data and coordinate with each
other to produce such data as to support the Emirate’s
development efforts.

SCAD’s Director General asserted that Statistics Centre -

Abu Dhabi is committed to working in close cooperation
with its strategic partners, including government and non-
government agencies, universities and research centres and
all parties concerned with statistical work in the emirate,
to enhance cooperation towards maximizing the usefulness
of the of statistical resources of Abu Dhabi Emirate and
building a strong statistical system that is based on sound
scientific principles and conforms to the best statistical
practices, with the aim of placing Abu Dhabi statistical
system by 2013 among the world’s top rated statistical
systems in terms of the quality, relevance, accuracy and
timeliness of the statistics compiled.

HE Al Qubaisi remarked that SCAD took strong interest in
signing this SLA, given the vast experience of ZonesCorp
in the regulation, licensing, monitoring and supervision of
industrial and economic activities within as well as outside
specialized economic zones in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Al
Qubaisi commended the efforts of ZonesCorp in providing
a full range of data on the whole spectrum of industrial
activities in the Emirate, expressing SCAD’s willingness to
extend any possible support the Corporation might need to
successfully implement its economic strategy.

For his part, ZonesCorp CEO, HE Mohamed Hasan Al Qemzi,
hailed the signing of the SLA, commending the role of
Statistics Centre - Abu Dhabi as the body that caters to the
needs of all government agencies in the Emirate through
the statistical plans prepared by SCAD as the sole entity
authorized and responsible for the collection, classification,
storage, analysis and dissemination of official statistics and
the release of the results of social, demographic, economic,
environmental and cultural surveys.

It is worth mentioning that the Statistics Centre - Abu Dhabi
plans to sign 43 SLA’s that are set to support decision-
and policy makers and the business sector to shape their
strategic plans on the basis of accurate figures and reliable
statistics.