Dr. Savaş Alpay, Director General of SESRIC, and Mr. Hüseyin Hakan Eryetli, Director of IT and Publications, visited Dr. Jamal Bourchachen, Secretary General of the High Planning Commission (HPC), and Dr. Mohamed Taamouti, Director General of Statistics, of the Kingdom of Morocco on 14 June 2011, at the High Planning Commission (HPC) headquarters in Rabat, Morocco.

Dr. Bourchachen expressed his gratitude for the visit and briefed the SESRIC delegation on general activities of the HPC. Dr. Taamouti, highlighted the expertise they accumulated over the years in statistics especially in the fields of national accounts, service sector statistics, transport and communication statistics. Dr. Taamouti also mentioned their need of capacity building especially in the field of Environmental Statistics.

On his part, Dr. Alpay expressed his thanks to Dr. Bourchachen and Dr. Taamouti for their warm hospitality, and briefed them on SESRIC's Statistical Capacity Building (StatCaB) Programme activities conducted since 2007. Dr. Alpay mentioned that the Programme has so far recorded significant impact and progress and received positive response from many OIC Member Countries. Dr. Alpay also emphasized the importance of Human Resource Development and Human Resource Quality achieved through the StatCaB Programme.

Dr. Savaş Alpay also gave information on the OIC-Statistical Commission and the future plans of SESRIC being appointed as the Secretariat of the Commission. In this regard, he thanked Dr. Mohamed Taamouti for their support in the First Session of OIC-StatCom held in April 2011 and their interest in participating in the Working Group for the Development of a Strategic Vision of the OIC-StatCom.