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The Director-General for Policy Planning (DPP) of the Statistics Bureau is responsible for comprehensive coordination of international statistical affairs in the field of official statistics of our country. DPP is also actively promoting cooperation with international organizations by participating in their international statistical activities.
Japan has been a member of the Statistical Commission of the United Nations since 1962 (except for 1971 and 1972). DPP prepares statements to be made at the Statistical Commission session by collecting and coordinating opinions and comments from the relevant Ministries and Agencies. Major international statistical meetings recently attended by the delegates of DPP are as follows:
DPP also acts as a liaison to the international organizations by participating in international projects and providing statistics of Japan. Japan has been participating in the United Nations International Comparison Program (ICP) since Phase I (with the benchmark year 1970). The Program aims at international comparisons of GDPs of various countries in terms of real value, by using purchasing power parities based on detailed price data and expenditure data provided by participating countries, instead of exchange rates as the conversion rate. DPP is in charge of coordinating the collection of necessary data for ICP with the cooperation of ministries and agencies concerned, such as Statistical Survey Department of the Statistics Bureau, Cabinet Office, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.
DPP also has done a role of coordination of IMF's SDDS.
In addition, DPP collects relevant information and replies to statistical inquiries from other countries as well as international organizations on a regular or irregular basis.
MIC, as the co-operating agency of the host government to the Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific (SIAP) has been contributing to international cooperation in statistical fields through supporting the training activities of the SIAP.
SIAP was established in Tokyo in 1970 (now situated in Chiba City) by 20 countries of Asia and the Pacific region, with the support of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), for the purpose of training government statisticians for countries in the region. SIAP was accorded the legal status of a subsidiary body of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) as of 1 April 1995. As the host country, Japan extends administrative assistance and cooperation to SIAP, with the DPP in charge. The Government of Japan also provides fellowships for major training courses conducted at SIAP, as part of its technical cooperation program through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
The purposes of SIAP are to strengthen, through practically oriented training of official statisticians, the capability and activities of the developing countries of the region to collect, to analyze and disseminate statistical data as well as to produce timely and high-quality statistics that can be utilized for economic and social development planning, and to assist those developing countries in establishing or strengthening their statistical training capability and other related activities.
The training programme consist of two dimensions: conducted at SIAP's premises in Tokyo Metropolitan Area aud those undertaken in the outreach programm
The participants attending courses conducted under this programme are normally funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency(JICA). The courses are regular in nature.
This pragramme complement the courses conducted in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area and carried out in collaboration with national statistical offices, related training institutes and donor agencieds. The courses are narmally of short-term duration and cover a wide range of topics. The corses are conducted at country,sub-regional and regional levels. The outreach programme has expanded considerably in recent years, there by enriching the content and scope of training of SIAP.The outreach programme of training is organized depending on the availability of funds to the Institute. The programmes are mainly funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and SIAP's institutional budget. In this latter, there are instancec of collaborations with international organizations and government agencies and consist of country courses, on the job training and missions to assist national statistical offices, and regional/ sub-regional courses/ workshops and seminars.
A) Institutional Funded Courses
