The Fifth ECO High Level Expert Group Meeting was held on 4-5 December 2012 in Ankara, Turkey, hosted by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat). The meeting was attended by the delegates from National Statistical Offices (NSO) from 6 ECO Countries including Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Turkey and the representatives of the Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC) and Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA). The Centre was represented there by Ms. Münevver Nilgün Egemen, Senior Researcher and Mr. Syed Tahir Mahmud, Researcher.

At the beginning of the meeting the ECO Secretariat briefed the participants on the activities of the Secretariat in the field of statistics and work undertaken by the Directorate of Project and Economic Research and Statistics (PERS Directorate) for the development of statistical cooperation in the region. Following the information concerning the Secretariat, the delegates of each member state gave a short presentation on the follow up to the 4th HLEGM, held on 7-8 April 2011 in Islamabad, Pakistan. The meeting mainly discussed the approaches to be considered in the harmonization of statistical methodologies and enhancement of international and regional cooperation in the field of statistics by focusing potential areas of joint cooperation for implementation of statistical capacity development projects across the ECO region. Within this context Ms. Egemen gave a presentation regarding the statistical capacity development and international cooperation activities in SESRIC emphasizing the role of the Statistical Commission of Islamic Cooperation (OIC-StatCom).

During the meeting, the participants expressed their opinions on the ECO Framework of Cooperation and Plan of Action on Statistics and Draft Work Plan of the Committee to be established to work on regional harmonisation of statistical methodology. At the end of the meeting, draft resolution was prepared suggesting that the venue and date of the forthcoming meeting would be decided following the ECO Secretariat consultation with all member states.

Documents

• Draft Annotated Agenda (English) 
• Presentation on “Statistical Capacity Building and International Cooperation; Achievements and the Way Forward”, SESRIC (English)