15th meeting of the Statistical Council of Belstat and Rosstat was held on 25-26 May

The 15^th annual meeting of the Statistical Council of the National Statistical Committee and Federal State Statistics Service of Russia was held on 25-26 May 2012 in Smolensk, Russian Federation.

The event was organized in accordance with the Programme of Work of the National Statistical Committee of the Republic of Belarus and Federal State Statistics Service to Ensure Comparability in the Field of Statistical Methodology for 2011-2015.

Measures to be taken on issues related to the application of common methodology for macroeconomic indicators were coordinated at the meeting, as well as a decision was taken to carry out a number of joint activities aimed at achieving data comparability and bringing them to a common system of compilation and presentation.

Issues reviewed at the meeting included those of the System of National Accounts, energy statistics, causes of discrepancy in data on the status of payments between the businesses of Russia and Belarus as compiled by Belstat and Rosstat, harmonization of the national activity and product classifications taking into account their maintenance and introduction of new versions, and external labour migration.

The status of implementation of the Programme of Work of the National Statistical Committee of the Republic of Belarus and Federal State Statistics Service to Ensure Comparability in the Field of Statistical Methodology in 2011 was also discussed.