ASEAN Community is out to be number one

Clear statistical data will benefit the ASEAN Community in a range of areas, especially trade

A plan to build the ASEAN Framework on Cooperation in Statistics for 2010-2015 was highlighted at last week’s 11th ASEAN Heads of Statistical Offices Meeting and Related Meetings in Hanoi.

This event followed ASEAN leaders’ first agreement on the common ASEAN Statement from vision to action, in which the ASEAN Framework on Cooperation in Statistics for 2010-2015 was adopted on October 19, 2010 at the 17th ASEAN Summit in Hanoi. This is a legal basis for the bloc’s cooperation to develop a common ASEAN Statistics Community.

The overall objective of this ASEAN Framework on Cooperation in Statistics for 2010-2015 is to strengthen the organisational framework and statistical capacity of ASEAN towards the establishment of an ASEAN Community Statistical System (ACSS) by 2015 that is able to produce timely and comparable statistics in support of a rules-based ASEAN Community.

The ACSS will consist of quality and comparable data, which will be produced by a user-adapted organisation that is dynamic and professional.

Priorities of statistical products will be focused on economic areas including national accounts, international trade and services, industry sector production statistics, international merchandise trade, foreign direct investment and price statistics systems.

“Statistical cooperation within ASEAN will help Vietnam and other member states build transparent and common statistical mechanisms, which will help boost commercial and investment relations,” said ASEAN Secretariat representative Aladdin D.Rillo.

“The ACSS will help ASEAN quickly boost the establishment of the ASEAN Statistics Community in particular and ASEAN Community in general over the next five years ,” he said.

Vietnam General Statistics Office’s acting director general Do Thuc said there were many problems related to cooperation mechanisms which needed shared efforts from all ASEAN member states.

He said under the ASEAN Chapter and the bloc’s leaders’ commitment on building a developed ASEAN Community, ASEAN statistics offices’ work was larger and related to ASEAN community pillars.

“Therefore, statistics in the coming years must be focused on measuring the progress of integration in all areas of economy, socio-culture and environment. We recognise this brings both opportunities for development and major challenges for our ASEAN Statistics Community,” Thuc said.