Statistics are extremely important for ASEAN's work and purposes. As ASEAN Secretary-General, I place the highest value on them and on their role in ASEAN cooperation.

Today, more than ever before, ASEAN feels the urgency of regional economic integration and regional cooperation. The emergence of a globalized economy and phenomenal advances in information and communications technology have given rise to problems that no single country can tackle by itself -- the economic, social and political contagion from periodic financial crises, the degradation of the environment, the rise of transnational crime. These twin phenomena have also produced unprecedented opportunities for our countries and their citizens. There are the global markets for our products, access to capital and technology for our industries, the availability of knowledge and information for our people, the ability to interact with other people, institutions and cultures to an extent generally undreamed of only ten years ago.

These forces - both the problems and the opportunities - have impelled and inspired ASEAN to hasten progress in regional economic integration and regional cooperation.

At their sixth formal Summit three weeks ago, ASEAN's leaders issued a series of urgent measures and a six-year plan of action to promote the early and rapid recovery of the region's economies. The plan of action would also cushion the impact of the economic downturn on the region's poor and vulnerable, protect the environment, strengthen a sense of community among ASEAN's people, and instill confidence, including among investors, in ASEAN's future.

A fundamental measure for economic recovery is the acceleration of the ASEAN Free Trade Area or AFTA. The leaders decided that, by 2000, AFTA would be substantially accomplished for the original six signatories and, by 2002, formally completed. They agreed to start a new round of negotiations on trade in services early this year. They adopted a number of decisive measures to draw investments into ASEAN. Earlier, ASEAN economic ministers had concluded an agreement to promote ASEAN as one investment area. ASEAN tourism ministers had decided to push ASEAN as one tourism destination. There have also been agreements to bind ASEAN economies closer together through regional infrastructure, including the development of growth areas, road networks, railway links, power grids, and gas and water pipelines. The ASEAN finance ministers have agreed to set up a surveillance process that would keep a close eye on capital movements and macroeconomic trends to help prevent financial crises in the future.

Clearly, such efforts to push the integration of ASEAN's economies and other forms of regional cooperation rest on shaky ground if they are premised on uncertain or inconsistent regional data. The credibility of ASEAN endeavors to promote a free trade area, an investment area, a single tourist destination, growth areas and a financial monitoring mechanism depends considerably on the quality of the ASEAN statistics on which the projects are based.

This is true also of efforts to deal with the social dimension of economic growth and economic setbacks - employment, education, science and technology, health, crime, drugs, the family, the community, the environment.

We cannot reliably undertake a regional cooperation, whether in the economic or in the social area, unless we have readily available to us at least the basic economic and social data on a regional basis. The ASEAN Secretariat receives many inquiries each day from governments, the media and the public on the most basic statistical facts about ASEAN and its activities. It is a source of constant frustration for us that the data are unavailable, or they are incompatible, incomplete or uncertain, or we are forced to fudge and equivocate. In drawing up papers for meetings or public statements, we often have to dig up data from a wide variety of sources, not having them readily available in usable form. And then we are sometimes unsure of their reliability. ASEAN governments, businesses, organizations, and other institutions find themselves in the same situation.

The task of restoring investor confidence in ASEAN and re-invigorating its economies makes the need for good statistics all the more urgent. We can expect investor confidence to return only on the basis of the transparency that is the call of the hour in the global economy. Reliable statistics are one measure of transparency, an important one. Business enterprises and financial institutions, having learned to be more careful in their investments, need, more than ever before, accurate and adequate data to make business an investment decisions. Region wide statistics are all the more important as we seek to promote ASEAN as a free trade area, one investment area, and one tourism destination.

I am sure you will be the first to acknowledge that the gathering, compilation and classification of statistics are not enough. The statistics must be analyzed, given meaning, and acted upon. But first, there must be the statistics - ASEAN-wide, consistent, authorative, relevant, and timely. They must also be accessible to those who need them at an easily identifiable locus.

Our long-term goal could be ASEANStat, regional database system linked to national databases and containing data acquired and collected on the basis of harmonized definitions and consistent methodologies and in accordance with international standards.

Before even approaching this goal, we need to address many issues. What statistics to be treated on a regional basis. The question of confidentiality. Technical problems. The different level of sophistication and stages of progress attained by the ASEAN member states in the area of statistics. The differences among member-states in their economics structures and statistical concepts and definitions. The all-important matter of funding, of who pays for all of this.

We need not be deterred by the complexity and magnitude of this long-term goal. We could, as we must, proceed in bite-sized chunks. We could start with an ASEAN Primary Database. As agreed upon at the inaugural meeting of the ASEAN heads of statistical offices, such a primary database would be a network of statistical focal points in the ASEAN national statistical offices. As also decided at that meeting, we could update the ASEAN Statistical Indicators. The national statistical offices could link their web sites with one another and with the ASEANWEB. We could begin work on harmonizing standards of statistical indicators, classification, concepts, definitions and measurements. We, of course, ought to draw up a program for training personnel for the technically demanding function of statistics. We could consider publishing regional statistics regularly and in stages as determined by our priorities and capacities.

As I said earlier, statistics have a particular importance to ASEAN's efforts at economic recovery. In this light, we are called upon to give priority to activities in support of these efforts. We could begin with the adoption of a regional code of transparency in statistics. We could issue a regional declaration of conformance with and adherence to international statistical standards. In the compilation of regional statistics and indicators, we ought to place some urgency on data directly related to the financial and economic crisis and its impact on ASEAN's people.

Last year, each ASEAN national statistical office was requested to provide data relevant for monitoring the economic and social impact ot the financial crisis. This year and the next few years demand for statistics will surge as governments, business, investors, analysis and international organizations seek to track ASEAN's economy recovery. We should work together as a team in this important exercise, helping one another, if only to make more efficient use of scarce resources.

I am gratified by your decision to conduct a regional population census in 2000, a project which promises to yield benchmark information on the ASEAN situation and serve as a cornerstone for ASEAN cooperation in statistics.

In accordance with your mandate, the Secretariat has drawn up a draft of an ASEAN Framework of Cooperation in Statistics. It is meant to serve as a discussion paper of this meeting and the basis for considering a plan of action for cooperation in statistics. We ought to proceed in stages, but we must proceed. The important thing is to make progress in making available to those who need it a uniform set of data on which to base policy and action for ASEAN cooperation.

We need not and must not duplicate the work of other agencies. What we can and must do is fill in the gaps, and I suspect that those gaps are many and wide. We must ensure that needed data are aggregated on a regional basis and that such regional data are readily and easily available.

Earlier, I referred to the need for ASEAN statistics to be readily available at an easily identifiable locus. The first meeting of the ASEAN heads of statistical offices indicated that this locus ought to be a unit in the ASEAN secretariat. I deeply appreciate your confidence in the Secretariat and your advocacy. We hope that the ASEAN Standing Committee will see the need for such a unit and approve the required budget for it.

However, in these days of tight budgets, we cannot be sure of this. We must then be prepared to be creative in seeking resources from outside the regular budget of the Secretariat. Here, we have to help ourselves as system of secondment. Or a national statistical office could volunteer to initially manage regional statistics for all of us.

Specific projects, however, could be funded from outside ASEAN. These would include the proposed ASEAN population census in 2000, the setting-up of communications linkages, the publication of certain sets of statistical data, and specific statistical surveys.

We have much work to do and do urgently. In order to make our work more efficient and expeditious, we might consider forming working groups on specific areas of our responsibility.

That work must be done and done well. It is vital to the economic recovery of our region, to ASEAN integration and cooperation and thus to the lives of our people and the future of Southeast Asia.