National statistical system of Azerbaijan is improving

On February 22 a conference on "EU support to the State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SSC) to reach European standards", funded by the European Union was held in Baku. The main objective of the project is to strengthen the capacity of the State Statistical Committee to provide users with better quality statistical information required for implementing and monitoring economic reforms in the country. To achieve this, the work is being carried out to fully harmonize the national statistical system with international and EU standards.

Mr Tahir Budagov, the Chairman of the State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan has opened the meeting underlining that due to successful social-economic reforms under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev modern Azerbaijan is acknowledged as one of the outstanding countries of the world that has successfully withstood the global financial and economic crisis and created an exclusive national development model. He noted that in all spheres the development of our country has entered a qualitatively new stage in recent years and as one of the prevailing goals at this stage is to ensure long-term perspective and sustainable social-economic development. Official statistics is of particular importance in planning of actions, evaluating and monitoring results. Mr Tahir Budagov expressed the confidence that after two successful Twinning projects implemented by the State Statistical Committee the “EU support to the State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SSC) to reach European standards” would contribute to improvement of official statistics and creation of a more efficient statistical system.

Ms Vilija Lapeniene, Director General of the Lithuanian Department of Statistics shared her experience in the evolution and standardization of business statistics processes in European Statistical System, as EU Project’s partner country underlined that in 2018, the expert group from the State Statistical Committee had a study visit to this country to review the experience of the Lithuanian Department of Statistics in the field of quality statistics management, while Lithuanian experts had visited our country.

Mr Vilayat Valiyev, Director of the Institute for Scientific Research on Economic Reforms under the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Mr Firdovsi Fikratzade, Adviser to the Director of Agricultural Research Center under the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Azerbaijan had delivered their speeches on the topics "The growing needs of high-quality statistics supporting the economic growth of Azerbaijan", "The importance of high-quality statistics for the development of agriculture in Azerbaijan".

At the second session, project activities and interim accomplishments were presented. Mr Ronald Delemont, Head of Statistics at ICON-Institute and   Mr Rimantas Juozas Vaicenavicius, Project's Team Leader delivered their speeches. The team leader highlighted that this project to be completed in 2020 covers four components that are "Improve prices and production indicators for macro-economic monitoring", "Application of current international statistical classifications identified areas to allow statistics to be comparable internationally and between sectors", "Operationalisation of recent statistical activities developed through EU funded Twinning projects and other partnerships", "Capacity of statisticians and other employees in SSC and other stakeholders improved to produce quality statistics".

Representatives of state bodies, a number of international organizations accredited in Azerbaijan, the representatives of the embassies of Project’s partner countries, as well as mass media attended the conference.