(MENAFN- Emirates News Agency (WAM))
DUBAI, 29th October, 2018 (WAM) -- The Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority, FCSA, has hosted the third Governing Board Meeting of the International Comparison Programme, ICP, at its headquarters in Dubai Festival City, marking the first time the meeting takes place in the Middle East.
Held in collaboration with the World Bank, the meeting was chaired by Statistics Austria, the country's federal statistical office, and follows the three-day UN World Data Forum 2018, organised by the FCSA in Madinat Jumeirah on 22nd and 24th October, bringing together more than 2,500 data experts, policy-makers, and representatives from academia, private companies and civil society organisations, CSOs, from around the world.
FCSA Director-General Abdulla Nasser Lootah welcomed the Board members to the Authority's headquarters, congratulating them on the International Comparison Programme's Golden Jubilee. "The initiative has come a long way since 1968 and has evolved into the largest statistical partnership in the world with participation from more than 200 countries, 20 institutions and many renowned experts," he said.
"The UAE joined the programme in 2011 and is fully committed since then to all its requirements," Lootah added, noting that the UAE was one of the first countries to implement sub-national Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) in 2015. "We believe that the ICP outcomes are very important for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), national statistics requirements, the UAE National Agenda, and competitiveness reports," he concluded.
Producing regular high-quality data on Purchasing Power Parities is of utmost importance for reliable international economic comparisons of countries and lies at the heart of the International Comparison Programmeme. Strong commitment at the highest level as we have seen it from members and observers of the ICP Governing Board in its meeting in Dubai make me confident that the currently running ICP exercise will be a big success," said Konrad Pesendorfer, Co-Chair oft he ICP Governing Board and Director General of Statistics Austria.
The attending Board members discussed the overall progress made in the implementation of the ICP's 2017 cycle and interim activities, examined regional progress reports, and evaluated outstanding risks and mitigation measures, before concluding the meeting with preparing for the ICP 2020 cycle.
The ICP is a worldwide statistical initiative led by the World Bank under the auspices of the United Nations Statistical Commission, with the main objective of providing comparable price and volume measures of gross domestic product (GDP) and its expenditure aggregates among countries within and across regions. Through a partnership with international, regional, sub-regional and national agencies, the ICP collects and compares price data and GDP expenditures to estimate and publish purchasing power parities (PPPs) of the world's economies.
WAM/Esraa Ismail/Rasha Abubaker
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