Prime Minister, Mohammed Shiaa Al-Sudani stressed the importance of the population census, which comes 27 years after the last census, as it provides data to decision-makers in all joints, and provides important information in planning and directing efforts in the right direction. During his visit to the operations room and the call center for the general population census, affiliated with the General Authority for Statistics and Geographic Information Systems in the Ministry of Planning, Al-Sudani renewed his praise for every effort related to preparing, training and qualifying enumerators. During the visit, Al-Sudani was briefed, according to a statement from his office, on the latest procedures related to conducting the general population and housing census, scheduled to be conducted next October, which includes programs and applications, and the process of providing tablets for enumerators. He also reviewed the registration form, which includes building numbers and details of housing units, in addition to basic information. The Prime Minister listened to a detailed report from those concerned about the mechanism by which the census process will be conducted. He also reviewed the progress of work at the census call center, which will be open to citizens. He also reviewed the stages of preparation for the census, training and readiness for approximately 700 researchers who participated in the pilot census, which has now reached the stage of packaging, enumeration and numbering, which included 40,000 researchers, in addition to training 80,000 new researchers, bringing the total to 120,000 researchers, with 11,000 reserve researchers, in addition to cooperation with the Kurdistan Region of Iraq to implement the stages of the census, which represents a fully electronic project, including tablets that send a spatial and temporal fingerprint and ensure the quality process in recording information. The Prime Minister pointed out the importance of the pilot census in revealing points that need to be strengthened o r modified, stressing the ministries and governorates to provide all necessary assistance to make the census a success, in addition to the importance of accuracy and high-quality training in the enumeration and numbering process by the employees in charge of the census. Source: National Iraqi News Agency