GASTAT concluded its participation in the work of the fifty-second session of the United Nations Statistical Commission, whose meetings were held virtually.

The first meeting was last Monday, and the proceedings of this session extended until Friday,. GASTAT was represented in these meetings by a delegation headed by His Excellency the President of the Authority, Dr. Konrad Pesendorfer, and included in its membership Dr. Akram Nour, the Vice President for Statistics, Dr. Anwar Hammad, advisor to the president, and Mr. Nayef Al-Balawi, the General Manager of International Relations and Cooperation.

The meetings of the 52nd session of the Statistical Commission discussed several topics focused on data and indicators related to sustainable development plans in member countries for the year 2030, coordination of statistical programs, in addition to the topics: economic statistics, national accounts, business and trade statistics, and what is known as environmental-economic accounting, as well the presentation and dissemination of metadata, discussing the topic of regional statistical development, managing and updating statistical systems, in addition to the future of big data, international statistical classifications, and household surveys.

Among the items covered by the work of the fifty-second session of the United Nations Statistical Commission are the review of demographic and cultural statistics, climate change statistics, and statistics related to local and global disasters. In addition, they discussed the International Comparison Program, the common open standards for the exchange and sharing of data and metadata globally, as well as ways to develop statistical capacity, and follow up on the decisions of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council related to policies, and the national frameworks to ensure the quality of statistical information and data, the topic of integrating statistical and geospatial information was reviewed, and the activities of the World Statistics Day were also reviewed. 

At the end of the meetings of the fifty-second session of the United Nations Statistical Commission, the provisional agenda and proposed dates for the fifty-third session of the Commission were discussed, the report of the Commission on its fifty-second session was reviewed, and several of recommendations and decisions were taken.

It is noteworthy that the International Statistics Committee at the United Nations is considered the highest international statistical committee, and the Kingdom's participation in the work of the session, represented by GASTAT, stems from the Kingdom's important role at the global level, and its permanent interaction with the issues and concerns of the international community.