Statistical measurement and its concepts and the analysis of economic implications of the informal sector’s development are being discussed at an international seminar that opened in Hanoi on May 6.

The two-day seminar, entitled “The informal sector and informal employment: statistical measurement, economic implications and public policies”, will summarise experiences, analyse opportunities and challenges and study current measures and solutions needed to be applied for the informal sector’s development.

The event is jointly held by the Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences (VASS), the French Development Research Institute (IRD), the General Statistics Office, the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs and international organisations, the French Development Agency (AFD), the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The seminar is designed to discuss the definition of the measurement of the informal sector and the informal employment in developing countries on the basis of the work by the Delhi Group co-ordinated by the United Nations and the ILO.

It will present and discuss the comparative outcomes of recent economic papers on the informal sector and the informal employment by academic researchers and international organisations.

It will also use the diagnoses and past experiences to help define targeted assistance policies for the informal sector and job creation.

Addressing the opening of the seminar, organisers’ representatives said that despite its predominant economic weight in developing countries, little is known about the informal sector and informal employment, which is still a “huge black hole” of the knowledge and largely neglected by public policies.

However, an increasing number of surveys have been conducted over the past few years; concepts and methodology to measure this sector have progressed; some international research has also been done, they said.

A number of international studies on the informal sector have been conducted in many countries and researchers from the Institute of Statistical Science and the IRD who have studied the informal sector in Vietnam since 2007 have gained a number of considerable results in their experimental surveys in Hanoi and HCM City , reported the seminar.

The participants also said that Vietnam like other developing countries, the global economic crisis is provoking huge employment losses and employment restructuring. This proves the interest for the informal sector and informal employment, they added.

After more than 15 years since the ILO introduced a common international definition of the informal sector, the international seminar is considered an important landmark in studying and analysing the informal sector on the global scale in terms of economic analyses and statistical measurement as well as the implementation of economic policies.

This is also an opportunity for three types of audiences who rarely have the chance to discuss and compare their approaches. They are researchers, statisticians and economic policy makers and executives./.