South Korean researchers have called for inter-Korean cooperation on building a credible statistical database. 

At a forum on Tuesday, Kim Seok-jin, a researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said he presumed it would be difficult for the North to produce trustworthy statistics, citing the lack of administrative power and incentives to make false reports, among other reasons. 

For instance, he said the North’s statistics on its GDP are hard to believe, noting the country does not reveal necessary data on production or the prices of goods and services. 

Lee Seok, a senior researcher at the Korea Development Institute(KDI), took issue with the lack of precision in the North’s census. 

He said the North's first census in 1995 included "uncategorized population" that was presumed to be that of its military, but it was very different from the presumed size of the North Korean military calculated via its previous population data.