On February 7 large board meeting devoted to activities of statistical bodies last year and forthcoming duties for 2020 has been held with participation of the Administration of the State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan, top management of the State Statistical Committee of Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic and local and regional statistical offices.

Tahir Budagov, the Chairman of the State Statistical Committee noted in the meeting that due to successful social-economic reforms carried out in our country during recent years under the leadership of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mr. Ilham Aliyev our republic is acknowledged as one of the outstanding countries of the world that has successfully withstood the global financial, economic, geopolitical and economic crisis, and created an exclusive national development model. He noted that comprehensive development of our country which passed its transition period has entered a qualitatively new stage in recent years and as one of the prevailing goals at this stage is to ensure sustainability of the long-term and social-economic development. He also mentioned that as a result of successful policy of the President of the country, in 2019 compared to 2018 economic growth made 2.2%, including in non-oil sector it increased by 3.5%, agriculture – 7.2%, non-oil-gas industrial product – 14.3%, nominal incomes of population – 7.4%. Generally, during last 16 years production of gross domestic product increased by 3.4 times, including in oil-gas sector – 2.9 times, production of industrial product – 2.7 times, including in oil-gas industry – 2.7 times, volume of investments directed to fixed assets – 2.9 times, cargo transportation – 2.1 times, volume of information and communication services – 14.2 times, state budget revenues – 20.0 times, expenditures – 19.8 times, nominal incomes of population – 9.9 times, minimum wage – 27.8 times, minimum amount of labour pensions – 10.0 times, foreign trade turnover – 6.4 times, including import – 5.2 times, export – 7.6 times, export of non-oil-gas products – 5.2 times, unemployment level decreased from 9.2% to 4.8%, poverty level – from 44.7% to 4.8%, during these years 2 369.0 thousand workplaces were created.

The Chairman of the Committee gave detailed information about the reforms implemented in accordance with tasks of Mr. Ilham Aliyev, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan related to improvement of official statistics in line with international standards and about activities of the organization in 2019. He noted that necessary measures are taken to improve information provision for assessing the status of achieving goals and priorities put forward in the strategic road maps on of the national economic perspectives and major sectors of economy, approved by the Decree of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan dated December 2016, No. 1138, to expand use of administrative data sources and accelerate reforms in the national statistical system; “The State Program on Improvement of the Official Statistics in the Republic of Azerbaijan in 2018-2025” is successfully executed. Important actions were implemented in the field of updating statistical infrastructure, increasing efficiency of statistical production process, improving reporting forms and methodological recommendations following to national and international requirements, as well as organization of works with statistical units and users. New administrative buildings of Zardab, Goygol and Shamakhi regional statistical offices were constructed and put into use within the framework of the State Program.         

It was highlighted in the board meeting that as during the previous years in 2019 as well, the State Statistical Committee focused on preparation of official statistical data in line with modern requirements, improvement and development of statistics in the country, and built its activity based on the program of statistical works for 2019, methodological and data users work plans, quarterly work plans on economic analysis and achieved timely and quality execution of tasks. It was noted that duties of the State Statistical Committee was timely implemented in order to provide execution of the Decree of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan dated September 7, 2019, No. 1040 “On conduction of population census in the Republic of Azerbaijan in 2019” in accordance with the order of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Azerbaijan dated December 16, 2016, No. 517 “On plan of actions on preparation and conduction of population census in the Republic of Azerbaijan in 2019”, the next population census was conducted in the Republic of Azerbaijan in 2019 on 1-10 October.

The State Statistical Committee takes necessary steps to strengthen its statistical capacity based on innovative technologies, actively cooperates with many international organizations and relevant agencies of developed countries, studies innovative approaches and new standards applied in the advanced countries and integrates them into the national statistical system. In order to ensure users can more effectively benefit from statistical data, a “Personal Cabinet” section has been created on the webpage of the Committee.

Development of ICT in the field of statistics and increasing the level of partner relations with the trade networks enabled more improvement of the process of registration of consumer prices. Thus, according to agreement with large trade networks operating in Baku and other major cities of the country, since January 2019 the data on retail sale prices presented online to the State Statistical Committee have been integrated to the database envisaged for calculation of consumer price index. Online receiving of price data from trade networks enabled increasing quality of calculation of consumer price index and that was the first experience among CIS countries.

In accordance with “ASAN service index evaluation rules” of the State services” confirmed by the order of the Board of the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan dated 17.10.2016, No. 1/1-06, the State Statistical Committee took 2nd place among 38 agencies (including 21 central executive authorities) in the rating table compiled based on the results of assessment by “ASAN service index” Agency in 2019 related with services provided by the State Statistical Committee.

There has been established a unique national online data source which creates efficient environment for bringing detailed information about Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to broad mass at the global and national level, as well as for public awareness about monitoring and assessment of the status of achievement of SDG at the national level, SDG enlightenment, best practices, measures and updates. The National Information Portal on Sustainable Development Goals of the Republic of Azerbaijan has been placed on the server of the State Statistical Committee at sdg.astat.org in Azerbaijan and English languages.

One of the main activity profiles of the State Statistical Committee in 2019 was strengthening of the methodological base; 53 methodological materials have been developed in accordance with methodologies of UN, Eurostat, IMF, OECD, ILO and other international organizations. 35 of them referred to compilation of official statistical reporting forms, 18 – conduction of statistical surveys, methodology on identification of indicators on teacher-student ratio by the country, indicators systems on micro, small and medium enterprises statistics and characterizing the level of access of the various strata of the population to food.

One of the main activity profiles of the State Statistical Committee during the reporting period was also data exchange with international organizations; last year active cooperation with UN and its regional organizations, European Union, IMF, ILO, UNICEF, UNESCO, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, OECD, OIC, Eurostat, Interstate Statistical Committee of the CIS and several other international organizations, as well as national statistical services of the world countries, has been continued. One of the main duties was arrangement of works with international organizations and their representatives in Azerbaijan related to bringing of the national methodologies to conformity with international standards, exchange of experience, studying and applying of the best practice of the developed countries, control of statistical data related to the Republic of Azerbaijan in the international information portals, elimination of the revealed inconsistencies. The projects “EU support to the State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SSC) to reach European standards“ and “The Strengthening Statistical Human Capacity in the Republic of Azerbaijan” between the State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Korea Statistics have been finalized. Furthermore, the Memorandums of Understanding for cooperation in the field of statistics between the State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Korea Statistics and the Statistics Netherlands.

In general, during a year 2080 analytical reports and 33 statistical yearbooks have been prepared by department of the administration and regional statistical bodies for the purpose of provision of managerial bodies and other users with summary statistical and analytical data reflecting social and economic situation by the country and its regions. Web-page of the Committee (www.stat.gov.az) has been regularly improved and updated to meet users demand; necessary measures have been taken for e-submission of report data by respondents without coming to regional statistical bodies. Consequently, e-receiving official statistical reports exceeded 95.0 percent, during a year 2.9 million appeals to submit e-statistical reports through Internet were received and thus the level of citizen-official relations was minimized, furthermore possibilities of processing and analysis of statistical data increased.

Later, regular reforms in the statistical system in 2019, reporting discipline, development of methodologies, organization of works with statistical units and users, use of administrative data, application of information technologies in statistical data collection, processing and dissemination, increasing data quality, main actions implemented by statistical bodies towards implementation of tasks envisaged in SDG and Strategic Road Maps have been discussed, speeches of heads of departments of the administration of the State Statistical Committee and heads of regional statistical bodies related to gained achievements as well as shortcomings.                

Finally, Mr. Tahir Budagov, Chairman of the State Statistical Committee have charged the relevant structures of the organization with concrete tasks for quality and timely execution of set duties.