Welcome to the 93rd DGINS Conference

Péter Pukli

It is my pleasure to welcome you on behalf of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office on the occasion of the 93rd DGINS Conference to be held in Budapest on 20–21 September 2007, back to back with the 63rd SPC meeting on 19 September 2007. It is a great honour for Hungary to host such an outstanding event.


It is by no coincidence that the 93rd DGINS Conference bears the title “The ESS response to globalisation – are we doing enough?” as today globalisation affects almost all fields of the economy, society, culture and environment. In this context of expanding globalisation, statistics have to face the increasing demand of measuring effectively its scope and impacts.

Along this line, the conference aims to find answers to how the statistical offices of the Member States and the European Statistical System as a whole can meet the statistical challenges of globalisation, and how we should satisfy the rightful needs of our users on the short, medium and long term.


Taking into account the complexity of the phenomenon, the conference will be organised as follows:

Participants will discuss the mutual relation of statistics and globalisation in a plenary session, while parallel sessions will be dedicated to the main fields of statistics, namely


Following the specific parallel sessions a plenary session will be held with the title: Globalisation processes in the field of statistics.

As closing of the conference a round table discussion about the ESS response to globalisation will make conclusions and give recommendations for our future work.


For the first time in the history of DGINS conferences, this year’s event will proceed according to the CES scheme. This means that each paper on the agenda will be summarised by a discussant, in order to facilitate the exchange of views and stir up discussion.


I am convinced that during the two days that we are going to spend together we will have many useful thought-provoking discussions guaranteed by the active participation of the countries in the various sessions and that our work will contribute to enhancing the professionalism of the ESS.


I am looking forward to welcoming you in Budapest in September.


Péter Pukli
President
Hungarian Central Statistical Office