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By Yi Whan-woo

The country's statistics agency has signed an agreement with an anti-drugs body of the United Nations with the intention of upgrading their partnership concerning data on drug-related crimes in the Asia-Pacific region.

Statistics Korea said Tuesday it inked the deal with the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) at its headquarters in Vienne, Austria, Monday, to enhance their joint project that began in 2019.

The project has operated to date, with the goal of exchanging human resources, technical knowledge and research and development to better collect and analyze data on drug-related crimes in the Asia-Pacific region.

Under Monday's deal, the two sides will work together to improve and develop crime statistics in the Asia-Pacific, including holding mentoring workshops, studying methods to innovate crime statistics, strengthening advisory services and developing education services among others.

"We expect Korea will play a leading role on the international stage concerning crime statistics through this latest deal," Statistics Korea said.

Among the latest activity of Statistics Korea and UNODC was the joint hosting of the International Conference on Governance, Crime and Justice Statistics in Seoul in November.

Also joined by Mexico's National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) and the UNODC Centers of Excellence, it was the biggest international conference on crime statistics.

Crime statistics experts from statistics agencies, research institutes, U.N. agencies and international nonprofit organizations from around 40 countries attended the event.