Third Workshop for the 2011 Round of the International Comparison Program in Western Asia Region
26-28 January, 2011
UN-House, Beirut

Objective of the Workshop:

One of the objectives of the 3rd ICP Workshop was to bring together the ICP national teams with the ICP regional office and the World Bank to review the global and regional list and agree on goods and services and their description so each and every country prices the same product for comparison purposes. The other objective of the workshop was to introduce and make national coordinators, statisticians and data entry clerks familiar with the ICP software kit.

The meeting was set out in the purpose of tackling the following topics as per the agenda attached as Annex I:

• Preparations for price data collection;

• Overview of each country’s survey framework;

• Discussion and finalization of Western Asia Amalgamated Product List;

• Demo of the HHC data entry module and the HHC data validation module;

• Overview of validation formulas;

• Installation of ICP software kit & hands-on Training.

Attendants:

1. Twenty-six representatives from eleven ESCWA member States including National Coordinators; Price Experts and Statisticians;

2. Two representatives from the Global Office, the World Bank;

3. Mr. Juraj Riecan, Director of Statistics Division, ESCWA

4. Mr. Majed Skaini, Economic Statistician, ESCWA

5. One ESCWA staff member from the ICP Regional team for Western Asia.