The Fourth Session of the ASEAN Community Statistical System (ACSS) Committee was held on 14-16 October 2014, in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar with greater confidence in realizing the goals formulated in 2009 of becoming a forward looking and reliable provider of relevant, timely and comparable statistics in support of the ASEAN Community by 2015. Mr. San Myint, Acting Director General of the Central Statistical Organization (CSO) of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar presided over the Meeting. Dr. Abdul Rahman Hasan, Chief Statistician of the Department of Statistics, Malaysia, co-chaired the Meeting.

In 2014, the ACSS gained the significant achievements as follows: (1) Deepening Regional Cooperation in Statistics in ASEAN: The ACSS Committee endorsed the ASEAN Framework of Cooperation in Statistics (AFCS, Revised Version and adopted the ACSS Strategic Plan 2016-2020 as enabling mechanisms to accelerate ACSS’ response to statistical requirements arising from the ASEAN Leaders’ initiatives toward an ASEAN Community by 2015; (2) Enhancing Dissemination and Communication of Statistics: The pace of progress in dissemination and communication of statistics was recorded through increased availability of and accessibility to ASEAN statistics. The ACSS Committee endeavoured to continue the simultaneous issuance of press releases to broaden awareness and visibility of ASEAN statistics; (3) Broadening the Scope of Statistical Support and Cooperation: Cognizant of the statistical developments in the international front as well as the increased demand for statistics on ASEAN integration monitoring, the ACSS Committee made efforts to meet the statistical priorities arising from the finalization of the ASEAN Community Post-2015 agenda. The Committee supported the inclusion of statistics on ASEAN connectivity in the Broad Framework for the Sustainable Development of ASEAN Statistics, the effective implementation of the System of National Accounts Forum, and the development of groundwork for the new statistical priorities; (4) Strengthening Partnership for Sustained Capacity Building: The four-year EU-ASEAN Capacity Building Program for Monitoring Integration Progress and Statistics (COMPASS) was commenced in June 2014. COMPASS aims to improve the quality of statistics and to facilitate the monitoring of ASEAN community integration.

At the Meeting, the ACSS Committee gave its sincere thanks to the continued support from international organizations and other development partners in its pursuit of excellence of ASEAN statistical products and services.

The ACSS Committee also expressed its sincere gratitude to the Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, through the Central Statistical Organization of the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development, for the strong leadership, excellent arrangements and the warm hospitality extended to the participants of the Fourth Session of the ACSS Committee. At the same time, the Committee welcomed the confirmation by the Department of Statistics, Malaysia to chair and host the Fifth Session of the ACSS Committee in Putrajaya in 2015.