10th session of ASEAN Community Statistical System slated for December 8-10

The 10th session of ASEAN Community Statistical System (ACSS) will be held on December 8 to 10 by the Vietnam General Statistics Office (GSO) and ASEAN Secretariat.

GSO Director General Nguyen Thi Huong

2020 marks a decade of the ACSS, which witnessed major milestones of the regional statistics and the increasing role of Vietnam in the community.

GSO Director General Nguyen Thi Huong said since the formation of the ACSS, the GSO has taken an active part in the building of the ASEAN statistical community.

As the Chair of ASEAN this year, Vietnam hosted the realisation of an initiative on establishing a statistical information system for the sustainable development of ASEAN. The initiative aimed to help establish a sustainable, unified and consistent statistical information system and ensure the provision of adequate information on tracking ASEAN member states’ progress towards the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The outbreak and complex development of COVID-19 this year has adversely affected social, economic, security and health sectors of countries all over the world. Governments of many ASEAN member countries have adopted social distancing and remote work in response to the pandemic.

Given that context, the GSO in collaboration with the Statistics Division (ASEANStats) under the Economic Community Department of the ASEAN Secretariat has overcome difficulties and co-ordinated ASEAN statistics work in the direction of enhancing interaction through the network environment and organising online sessions, including the 19th and 20th Meetings of ACSS Sub-Committee on Planning and Coordination, and those of ASEAN Working Groups.

Preparations for the successful organisation of the upcoming ACSS 10 are underway, Huong added.

On the first day of the meeting, delegates are due to touch on finalising concept notes on the potential use of big data to enhance official ACSS statistics, evaluations of the mid-term ACSS strategic plan for 2016-2020 and adjusted plan for 2016-2025 as well as a review of work in 2020 will also be on the agenda.

The plenary session on December 9 is to discuss measures to bolster ACSS institutions and sustainability, popularity and the frequent use of ASEAN statistics and measures to meet the growing ASEAN demand for data.

A summit on the ACSS and Vietnam's National Statistics System will be held online on the last day of the meeting.

The ACSS Committee is the highest regional policy-making and coordinating body on ASEAN statistics. Its mandate is to improve statistical capacity, enhance comparability of statistics, build human resources and co-ordinate regional data collection./.

VNA