The GSO had a courtesy reception with Mr. Atonio Alessandro, the Ambassador of Italy in Vietnam
In the morning, November 8, 2019, the ceremony of introducing mid-term results of the project “Vietnam – Improvement of National Statistical System” financed by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) was held by the General Statistics Office (GSO) in coordination with the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat) in Hanoi. Mr. Nguyen Bich Lam, Director General of GSO and Mr. Atonio Alessandro, the Ambassador of Italy in Vietnam co-chaired the ceremony. Attending this event were Mr. Pham Quang Vinh, Deputy Director General of GSO; Ms. Nguyen Thi Huong, Deputy Director General of GSO; Mr. Martino Melli, Director of AICS in Vietnam; Ms. Roberta Fontana, the Project Director from Istat; Mr. Antonie Vander Elst, Diplomatic Attaché of the European Union Delegation to Vietnam; Mr. Henrik Hjort, Counselor, the Embassy of Denmark; representatives of leaders of units under the GSO; representatives of relevant ministries and sectors; and press agencies.
Before the ceremony, the GSO had a warm reception with Mr. Atonio Alessandro, the Ambassador of Italy in Vietnam. The GSO highly appreciated the Ambassadors acceptance of their invitation to attend and co-chair the ceremony to introduce the mid-term results of this Project. In the spirit of cooperation and responsibility of the parties, GSO, AICS and Istat will coordinate closely, allocate resources and create the most favorable conditions to successfully implement the Project.
Mr. Nguyen Bich Lam, Director General of GSO delivered the opening speech at the ceremony
In 2014, the GSO signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of bilateral cooperation with ISTAT in order to gain valuable experience from this agency to improve the capacity of the GSO. After proactively identifying and selecting the contents and areas of cooperation, the GSO and ISTAT proposed to AICS to bring them in the technical assistance program of the Government of Italy for the GSO. In February 2018, the project “Vietnam – Improvement of National Statistical System” with the 3-year duration 2018-2021 was approved by the Government of Italy, financed by AICS with the overall amount of 648,714 Euros.
In the opening speech, General Director of GSO Nguyen Bich Lam said that the Project consisted of 5 components: Institutional building; Energy statistics; Environmental and climate change statistics; Information dissemination; Information and communications technology (ICT). The AICS in Hanoi directly manages the Project, the Istat provides the technical assistance, and the GSO is both the beneficiary and the partner of the Project. The overall objective of the Project is to enhance the GSO’s capacity to better perform the role of leading and coordinating the national statistical system and operate towards a effective responsive public service agency in order to better meet information needs of the Government and local authorities at all levels as well as information users. Untill now, after a half of the duration of the Project, approximately 51% of the activities have been implemented with the specific initial achievements recorded by the parties.
Overview of the ceremony
Mr. Atonio Alessandro, the Ambassador of Italy in Vietnam said: “The project, despite of a limited budget for 3 years, has an important position in contributing to improving the capacity of the Vietnam statistical system, at the same time, contributing to Vietnam’s socio-economic development. “
Participants listened to Ms. Roberta Fontana, Project Director, presenting the project overview and results achieved in the period of 2018-2019.
Also at the ceremony, Ms. Nguyen Thu Oanh, Director of the Integral Statistics Department under the GSO, introduced the Version 1 of the GSO’s new website. The GSO’s new website is developed on the principle of users oriented, an effective tool for statistics dissemination.
In the discussion, all participants highly appreciated the effectiveness of the Project. The GSO committed to working closely with AICS and Istat to arrange the best plan in order to successfully implement the remaining activities of the Project.