Statistics Netherlands, founded in 1899, is a Dutch governmental institution that gathers statistical information about the Netherlands. In Dutch it is known as the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (Central Agency for Statistics), often abbreviated to CBS. It is a department of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and is located in The Hague and Heerlen. Since 3 January 2004, Statistics Netherlands has been a self-standing organisation, or quango.
The CBS collects statistical information about, amongst others:
- economic growth
- consumer pricing
- income of persons and households
- count of the population
- unemployment
The CBS carries out a program that needs to be ratified by the Central Commission for Statistics. This independent commission must guard the impartiality, independence, quality, relevance, and continuity of the CBS, according to the Law on the CBS of 1996 (Wet op het Centraal bureau en de Centrale commissie voor de statistiek).
Famous quotes containing the words statistics and/or netherlands:
“O for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through! Our statistics are at fault: the population has been returned too large. How many men are there to a square thousand miles in this country? Hardly one.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Greece is a sort of American vassal; the Netherlands is the country of American bases that grow like tulip bulbs; Cuba is the main sugar plantation of the American monopolies; Turkey is prepared to kow-tow before any United States pro-consul and Canada is the boring second fiddle in the American symphony.”
—Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko (1909–1989)