The next meeting of the Statistical Council under the State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan was held.

First, Tahir Budagov has informed the Council’s members about the issues of the meeting agenda. He has noted that the Republic of Azerbaijan as a pilot country in the implementation of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, always supported international efforts on Extractive Industries Transparency (EIT) and reporting, carried out necessary measures closely cooperating with foreign and local companies operating in the country to ensure EIT reporting on the base of international standards, as well as provided the development of relevant reports and ensured its accessibility to the public. Moreover, considering important changes in the international principles and standards that promote reporting in recent years to increase the efficiency of reporting processes and to make them more flexible, new requirements for the application of sustainable reporting have been determined by the Decree of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan “On additional measures for implementation of Extractive Industries Transparency reporting” dated 28 July 2020, No. 1114; ensuring EIT reporting and coordination of activities of public authorities in this area, continuous collecting of EIT reports in the Republic of Azerbaijan and accessibility of the generalized official statistics to the public was entrusted to the State Statistical Committee. During recent period relevant measures have been taken by the State Statistical Committee to ensure the implementation of the Decree.

Then, the Chairman of the Committee informed the Council members about the work carried out in recent years to increase the use of administrative data, noting that administrative data is of particular importance for official statistics. In order to reduce the data burden on statistical units the relevant working groups have been established in order to eliminate duplication on the data submitted by them to several public authorities, to expand the use of the data collected by public authorities in official statistics related to implementation of their administrative duties, and to ensure the taking of necessary measures on integration of these data to statistical databases of the State Statistical Committee. Relevant Agreements on the integration of databases of the ministries of Justice, Labour and Social Protection of Population, Education, as well as the State Migration Service and the State Examination Center have been signed and necessary organizational, technological and technical measures are being implemented in this regard.

During the meeting, Gasim Aliyev, Head of the Department of Statistical Works Coordination and Strategic Planning of the State Statistical Committee made a presentation of report “On the work done with regard to integration of databases of public authorities into the statistical database of the State Statistical Committee”, Elman Gasimzade, Head of the Department of Industry and Construction Statistics – “On measures taken in relation to implementation of Extractive Industries Transparency reporting”, and gave detailed information in this regard.

At the meeting, which continued with the discussions, several proposals were disclosed by the Council members, the work done was evaluated positively and it was considered expedient to continue work in this direction.