Mr Chairman, Mr Permanent Secretary,

Distinguished Participants, Colleagues,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the tenth session of the Committee on Statistics. I should first like to express my sincere thanks to Mr Likit Therdsteerasukdi, Permanent Secretary, the Prime Minister's Office of Thailand, who has kindly found time to address us this morning. I am very grateful to him for inaugurating the meeting.

Mr Chairman,

The Committee on Statistics is one of the six committees within the current conference structure of ESCAP. The role of the Committee in promoting statistical development in the region dates back to 1951 when a predecessor body known as the Regional Conference of Statisticians of Asia and the Far East first met. That body was renamed the Conference of Asian Statisticians in 1957 and thereafter the Committee on Statistics in 1974. This long tradition of statistical conferences underlines their continued relevance to the statistical community in the region. This is amply reflected today by the large number of countries represented, and the presence of many senior statisticians from the region's capitals as well as from international and regional agencies. I would like on this occasion to extend a special welcome to Mr Hermann Habermann, the Director of the United Nations Statistics Division. The deliberations in this forum have provided sound direction for statistical development in the region and guidance for the secretariat for the past forty years, and I have every confidence that this session will continue in that vein.

As a counterpoint to that sense of continuity, I am pleased to note that there have been innovations in the functioning of the Committee on Statistics. Formalizing the establishment of a bureau to provide a degree of continuity between Committee sessions, and designating it to undertake specific tasks as outlined in its terms of reference, are intended to provide a closer link between the secretariat and the Committee, and to facilitate the Committee's fulfilling its functions. You will have the opportunity this week to examine how these new arrangements are working, as well as to review the place of the Committee on Statistics in the Commission's conference structure, which is currently under close scrutiny. You will also have the opportunity to propose to the Commission at its fifty-third session the revised terms of reference of the Committee, which emphasize its role as the focus of regional statistical development.

Mr Chairman, Distinguished Participants,

The issues that have been highlighted at the international level by recent global summit meetings and conferences invariably call for organizations such as yours to provide benchmark data and other indicators for monitoring progress. There are challenges to your profession to produce viable and relevant measuring tools as a basis on which achievement of the goals in the various plans and programmes of action which your governments have adopted can be gauged. There are a number of issues which are of continued interest to governments - such as gender equity, poverty and its distribution, and trade and economic issues - which have statistical implications. Quantifying the depletion of natural resources and estimating the cost of environmental degradation within an economic accounting framework are also among the issues that the national statistical organizations must address. Official statisticians are continuously being confronted with new challenges and, in a sense, are often chasing after moving targets. This Committee can play a significant role in the exchange of useful experience and the development of collective approaches to help meet these challenges.

It is well known that statistical collections sponsored by national authorities are intended mainly to meet the needs of the government and users, such as researchers and the business community, within the country itself. But greater than ever interest is being shown in comparable data for other economies. Internationally consistent statistics in the social and economic spheres are assuming greater importance. To cite just one example, decision-making in investment would greatly suffer in the absence of such data. With the globalization of trade and capital movements, many countries will find it in their national interest for the data they disseminate to meet acceptable international standards, so that investors can use them with confidence. As a former central bank governor, I have a special interest in the efforts initiated by the International Monetary Fund to promote the Special and General Data Dissemination Standards. But I fully recognize that the implementation and maintenance of such standards will without doubt require additional resources from national statistical organizations, resources which are already under heavy pressure from numerous other directions. Countries will have to determine their own priorities for statistical work. But this Committee can serve as a platform for advocating that national statistical systems require adequate investment of resources if they are to serve national interests satisfactorily.

Mr Chairman,

Statistical training is a topic of continuing interest to the Committee, as it is a fundamental element in the process of enhancing national statistical capabilities. Capability-building is a continuing process, requiring sustained efforts. We in the ESCAP region are fortunate to have an institution like SIAP, which was established some 26 years ago in the spirit of regional cooperation. I should like to express our deep appreciation to the Government of Japan, other participating governments, and UNDP for their generous financial assistance and support in enabling us to sustain and improve this vital facility. With the status of a subsidiary body of the Commission, SIAP is now on a more durable footing and will be further strengthened with your enhanced support. As I expect you all know, the Governing Board of the Institute met last week, and its report is before the Committee. Your guidance in helping to chart the future direction of SIAP will be most useful.

Besides technical and coordination issues in statistics, your agenda includes an item on public sector computerization. As you may recall, the Committee on Statistics was assigned that mandate at a time when microcomputers were changing government information processing on a large scale. Currently Governments and private enterprises, as well as we in the secretariat, are experiencing another technological wave that is fundamentally realigning our information collection, dissemination and related services. This new wave is of course caused by global and wide area networking, which combines computing and telecommunication technologies in a synergistic way. An extrapolation of the current trend envisages that information systems will eventually form an enterprise-wide, or in your case government-wide, network where no non-personal information system exists in isolation. In view of the speed of evolution and the wide impact of technological changes, the secretariat must, for practical reasons, choose to work in narrow segments of public sector computerization. The Committee's guidance will be necessary in selecting that focus.

Mr Chairman, Distinguished Participants,

As you may be aware, a number of review and reform processes are currently under way in the United Nations concerning the restructuring and revitalization of the Organization. Reform remains a continuing concern for any dynamic organization and the attention of the member States to this area reflects their commitment to the United Nations and their interest in making it an effective and responsive organization. Downsizing and efficiency gains have been major preoccupations of the United Nations in recent years - the staffing level for the biennium 1998-1999 will represent a 30 per cent reduction compared with the level 15 years ago.

In this respect, the papers before the Committee document the resources and the staff strength of the Statistics Division in the secretariat. The Division is small indeed compared with the statistical services of most countries in Asia, especially the larger ones. We should therefore be realistic about what this work force can do in terms of direct assistance to countries. Nevertheless, the Committee and its secretariat are well placed to initiate and coordinate statistical development activities. One of our important resource endowments is the cooperation and support we receive from the regional and international community of nations. I am pleased to note that through cooperation among statistical organizations in the region, the secretariat has been able to facilitate the exchange of experience in the form of seminars and workshops, and also in study tours for statisticians from one country to visit others. Furthermore, the provision of documentation for this meeting by member countries serves to demonstrate the involvement in the Committee and its programmes by the members and associate members. As many of your organizations have competent professionals, I would also like the Committee to consider ways in which this expertise might be placed in the service of other less well-endowed countries - perhaps through the provision of technical support to the secretariat, corporate consultancies, or advisory services on request. The secretariat stands ready, within its resource limitations, to facilitate, promote, and stimulate such interactions, with a view to strengthening the involvement of member countries with statistical development programmes in the region. I should like to leave these ideas with you for your consideration.

Mr Chairman, Distinguished Participants,

You have a long agenda on issues which you have the expertise to deal with in detail. Your deliberations will definitely help the secretariat to implement activities for the benefit of the statistical community in the region.

I wish you all success in your discussions and a very pleasant stay in Bangkok. Thank you.