The Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics participated in the inauguration of GCC Statistical Centre in Sultanate of Oman. The ceremony was celebrated yesterday under the patronage of HE Yousef Bin Alawi Bin Abdullah, Minister Responsible for Foreign Affairs, with the participation of HE Dr. Abdullatif Al Zayani, Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council, and HE Ambassador Abdullah Mohammed Al Khater Qatar's Ambassador to the Sultanate, and a number of senior officials and members of the diplomatic corps in the GCC countries.    The GCC-Stat Centre is based in Muscat, and provides services for the Member States, regional bodies, international researchers, and all those interested in obtaining high quality data. The GCC-Stat Centre’s vision aims to make the centre a reliable source and effective tool for the statistical system in the GCC countries, so as to convey its mission and provides the support for the decision makers, researchers and those interested in statistical knowledge. On the occasion of the inauguration of the GCC-Stat Centre, an international seminar was organized on the statistical system change of the GCC countries entitled “Productivity and Addressing the Increasing Demand on Statistics”. Representatives of the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics have participated in this seminar, along with a number of statistics producers and users in the GCC countries and some international and regional organizations and bodies. The participants discussed the future projections of the statistical system of the GCC, and innovations in the area of official statistics, as well as the ways to comply the new statistical requirements.  The MDPS has also participated in the exhibition, held on the sidelines of the ceremony, on the key- reports and newsletters that are issued by the Member States during the past period. The MDPS exhibited the Qatar National Vision 2030, Qatar National strategy 2011-2016, the Atlas of Qatar, Qatar in Numbers, Marriage and Divorce Report, Cultural Statistics Report, and other various national reports. It is worth noting that the establishment of the GCC-Stat Centre was approved by the Ministerial Council of the Cooperation Council for the Arab Gulf States in September 2011, and its Charter was officially endorsed in December 2012 by the GCC Supreme Council, comprising of Their Majesties and Highnesses the Heads of Member States.