Executive Order (EO) No. 352 was passed on July 1, 1996 to designate the statistical activities that will generate critical data for decision-making of the government and private sectors.

The EO further identifies the responsible agencies, frequency of conduct, disaggregation, and schedule of data dissemination.

As a service to data users, the system of designated statistics forms one of the responses of the NSCB on the need to generate data at a desired frequency, time and level of disaggregation.