On 15 May 2020, the 19th Meeting of ACSS Sub-Committee on Planning and Coordination (SCPC19) chaired by the General Statistics Office of Vietnam took place with 11 online bridgeheads of ASEAN Member States’ Statistical Offices and the ASEAN Statistics Division (ASEANstats). The meeting was scheduled to take place in February 2020, but due to the increasingly complicated development of COVID-19 pandemic in the region as well as worldwide, it was forced to reschedule to 15 May, 2020.

The meeting focused on discussing the priority contents of the 2020 work plan of the ASEAN Community Statistical System (ACSS), including: (1) Activities to prepare for the High Level Forum on ASEAN Statistics taking place and the 10th Session of the ACSS Committee (ACSS10); (2) Finalizing the ACSS Strategic Plan 2021-2025; (3) Recommendations for the implementation of the first report on the SDG Indicators of the ASEAN Community; (4) Finalizing Concept Notes on the potential use of Big Data for enhancing the ACSS official statistics; (5) Developing framework of ASEAN-help-ASEAN initiative for statistical capacity building.

The year 2020 marks an important milestone in the process of integration and development of ACSS. The 10th anniversary of ACSS will be celebrated in 2020, and this is also the year the world celebrates World Statistics Day. Based on the results of this meeting, as the ASEAN Chair of Statistics, Vietnam will be well prepared for the SCPC20 on 4-5 August in Da Nang, 2020 and the ACSS10 on 20-22 October 2020 in Hanoi.