The ASEAN Heads of statistical offices and members of the ASEAN Community Statistical System (ACSS) Committee convened the second session in Siem Reap, Cambodia on 27-28 September 2012.
At the Meeting, the ACSS Committee adopted the ACSS Code of Practice which built on the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, ACSS’ core values, as well as international best practices. The Committee also endorsed the monitoring tools to strengthen the implementation and monitoring of the ACSS Committee’s Work Plans.
The ACSS Committee gave its sincere thanks to the ASEAN Economic Ministers (AEM) for the support expressed during the 44th AEM Meeting to the voluntary secondment programme of statistical officials as part of the measures to strengthen the ASEANstats. The Committee agreed to work with the ASEAN Secretariat in developing the detailed arrangement of the secondment program.
The ACSS Committee tasked the Working Group on Data Sharing, Analysis, Dissemination and Communication of Statistics to explore how such consultation mechanism could be developed to improve the relevance and contribution of the ACSS toward the establishment of an ASEAN Community.
In addition, the ACSS Committee recorded the progress in the harmonization of ASEAN international merchandise trade statistics (IMTS), statistics on international trade in services (SITS) and foreign direct investment statistics (FDIS). The Committee agreed to transform the task forces on IMTS and SITS into working groups and commit to making available the required resources for the effective functioning of the working groups.
The ACSS Committee also embarked on the development of a suitable system of data sharing and dissemination among the ASEAN Member States (AMSs) and ASEAN Secretariat to further promote collaboration toward more comparable ASEAN statistics.
The ACSS Committee has endeavoured to seek greater support from higher ASEAN bodies and to strengthen data dissemination and communication mechanisms at the national and ASEAN levels.
For capacity building and strengthening partnership, the ACSS Committee has received the continued assistance from Dialogue Partners, development partners and other international organizations, and looks forward to their increasing support and collaboration particularly in the improvement of national system’s capacity, implementation of 2008 System of National Accounts, development of short-term economic indicators, as well as in other global and regional initiatives on statistics.
In the conclusion of the Meeting, the ACSS Committee expressed its deep appreciation to the Government of the Kingdom of Cambodia, through the National Institute of Statistics, for the excellent leadership, meeting arrangements and facilitation, as well as for the warm hospitality during the Second Session of the ACSS Committee. At the same time, the Committee welcomed the confirmation of the Department of Economic Planning and Development, Prime Minister’s Office, to host the Third Session of the ACSS Committee in Brunei Darussalam, in the third quarter of 2013.