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Statistics legislation

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Tike’s obligations are laid down in the Act on the Information Centre of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (1200/1992) and its amendment (667/2006), and also in the Act on Statistics on Rural Industries (1197/1996). The legislation governing Tike’s operations defines its task as the production and publication of statistics on rural industries in accordance with the law (1197/1996) and the provision of services relating to the compilation and management of these statistics. The Act on Statistics on Rural Industries contains a precise definition of the statistics that must be compiled. Tike has extensive legal rights to gather information on rural enterprises, agriculture and horticulture, and their associated trade and processing.

The Statistics Act (280/2004) governs the compilation of statistics and the obligation to provide information. This act obligates statistics authorities to compile their statistics using existing administrative data where possible. Information that is not available from other sources may be collected, as long as this has been discussed in advance with the informants or their interest groups. Changes to existing data collections must also be discussed in advance. The Statistics Act also governs confidentiality and the disclosure of information for research purposes. Statistical operations must comply with freedom of information legislation and the Personal Data Act.

In addition to Finnish law, statistical operations are also governed by the regulations, acts and resolutions of the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Commission. When drawing up statistics for the Statistics Programme, the European Statistical Agency (Eurostat) and the statistics authorities of EU countries must apply the EC Regulation on European Statistics. Although this supranational legislation supersedes the Finnish Statistics Act, in practice there is no conflict between EU and Finnish legislation on statistics.

Tike participates in the preparation and coordination of statistics regulations for the European Commission’s Standing Committee for Agricultural Statistics (SCAS) and its subcommittees. It also undertakes the preparation of legislation on agricultural statistics for the Council of the European Union’s statistics committee.