7–8 April 2010

At the request of the Vietnam Productivity Centre (VPC), an APO mission was sent to Hanoi, 7–8 April, under the research project on the APO Productivity Database undertaken by the Research and Planning (R&P) Department of the Secretariat. The mission, led by Keio University Professor Koji Nomura, discussed productivity measurement methodology, particularly total factor productivity computation, with the VPC and the General Statistics Office of Vietnam. Professor Nomura and Yasuko Asano, Secretariat officer in charge of productivity measurement, spent one day giving a series of presentations on the APO’s harmonized productivity measurement methodology and on the R&P Department initiative for productivity data research and member country capacity building aimed at improving the quality of economic data, since this is indispensable for productivity measurement. The meetings and presentations were attended by VPC staff and statisticians from the General Statistics Office of Vietnam as well as other counterparts including the Foreign Trade University, National Economics University, Central Institute for Economic Management, and the Vietnam Standards and Quality Institute.