PARIS21 participated in the 6^th meeting of the ASEAN Community Statistical System (ACSS) Committee held in Vientiane, Lao PDR on 2-4 November 2016 to discuss progress in the implementation of statistical programmes and activities in the ACSS Strategic Plan 2016-2020.   The meeting brought together the Chief Statisticians from the 10 ASEAN member countries to share their on-going work and capacity building initiatives to develop their respective national statistical systems as well as to strengthen the ASEAN regional statistical system.  Participating as observers were representatives from development partners, bilateral donors, and different Ministries and provinces in Lao PDR.

The ACSS is making headway in statistics co-operation in the region with continued developments in the harmonisation and strengthening of key regional statistics specifically on Trade in Goods, Trade in Services, and Foreign Direct Investments.  The strong co-operation in these 3 statistical areas was crucial towards achieving a highly integrated and cohesive regional economy advancing a single market agenda through trade in goods and services and integrating a more seamless movement of investment.  Furthermore, plans are underway to expand the list of ASEAN indicators to mainstream the SDGs indicators in the ACSS Strategic Plan (ASEAN’s RSDS) as a cross-cutting concern.  Also, progress is being made in Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand with respect to Open Data initiatives at the national level. An interesting new programme was launched in the region in 2016, the “Cascading/Echoing of the Relevant Outcomes of Meetings of the ACSS/ASEAN Bodies”, a south-south cooperation and exchanges of experiences and good practices in statistics aimed at improving national coordination and visibility of the ACSS outputs in the member countries’ national statistical system.

The ACSS also produced a new video on ASEAN’s 2 Decades of regional statistical cooperation.