Over 70 participants took part in the conference, among them were international experts, representatives of Belstat and its regional offices, representatives of government agencies, academia, international organisations, and leading national mass media.
The conference covered the results of the Adapted Global Assessment (AGA) of the national statistical system of the Republic of Belarus and follow-up recommendations of the team of international experts.
The Strategy for the development of state statistics until 2017 was presented.
The aim of the strategy is to improve the quality of statistical products and services, to ensure effective and efficient statistical production, and to develop the team of professionals. Achievement of these goals will contribute to strengthening of the image of official statistics and user confidence.
Welcome address was delivered by Vladimir Zinovsky, Chairman of the National Statistical Committee of the Republic of Belarus. He thanked the international experts for the fruitful joint work.
‘Having initiated the Adapted Global Assessment in 2010, we expected not only to identify strengths and weaknesses of the statistical system of the Republic of Belarus, but first of all to define priority directions for further development, improvement and strengthening of the statistical capacity on the basis of this assessment. The recommendations provided by the AGA team in their report have been included in the Strategy for the development of the statistical system of the Republic of Belarus.
The Strategy for the development of the statistical system of the Republic of Belarus is not a new document. It was developed in 2011. Today, at this conference, we would like to present the updated document on the strategic directions, with some areas expanded in view of the experts’ recommendations. The AGA team’s recommendations allowed us to look at some strategic areas from the point of view of the best statistical practices,’ noted Vladimir Zinovsky.
At the opening of the conference the UN/UNDP Resident Representative in the Republic of BelarusMr. Sanaka Samarasinha also addressed the participants. He thanked Belstat for joint collaboration, wished further successful work and noted the importance of statistics in modern society.
The AGA team was represented at the conference by Mr. Gabriel Gamez, Regional Adviser of the UNECE Statistical Division, and Ms. Claudia Junker, Head of Unit A-6 “Statistical cooperation” of Eurostat.
The international experts recognized that Belstat and statistics produced by it have a good reputation and that Belstat’s staff are highly qualified and committed.
The experts expressed a high opinion of the organisation of statistical production which is based on the scientific approach and best practices and focused on user needs and reducing of the burden on respondents. They also noted the innovative approach of Belstat to promote the knowledge about statistics in the country.
Director of the International Institute of Statistical Education of the National Research Institution “Higher School of Economics” (Russian Federation) Alexey Ponomarenko presented the paper “Cooperation within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Commission and harmonization of methodology”. The main topic of the presentation was assurance of the comparability of statistical data across countries and regions.
The First Deputy Chairperson of the National Statistical Committee of the Republic of Belarus Irina Kostevich made a presentation on “Main strategic directions in the development of statistics”.
Within the framework of the presentation she outlined the major directions of the improvement of statistical system, among which:
The Head of National Accounts of the National Statistical Committee of the Republic of Belarus Irina Sergeichenko spoke on “Improvement of macroeconomic statistics”. She talked about the current state of national accounts of Belarus, external trade statistics, price statistics. She also outlined the main directions of the improvement of national accounts and the priorities for implementing SNA 2008.
Deputy Chairperson of the National Statistical Committee of the Republic of Belarus Irina Kangro made a presentation on “Business statistics: new requirements and prospects”. She spoke about recent developments and strategic directions of the development of business statistics which includes industrial, domestic trade, construction, finance, structural, energy and environment statistics.
Deputy Chairperson of the National Statistical Committee of the Republic of Belarus Elena Kukharevich delivered a presentation on “Social and demographic statistics: indispensable element of managing socioeconomic processes”. She outlined the main directions of the development of household survey statistics, price, education, health, and tourism statistics, improvement of the system of indicators for the statistical analysis of wages and salaries, and also about the preparation to the population census of the 2020 round.
Deputy Chairperson of the National Statistical Committee of the Republic of Belarus Vadim Bogush reported on “Main directions of the development of the statistical information system”. He spoke on the development of the information and communication technologies in Belarus statistics (including the Integrated Information System of State Statistics) on the basis of the implementation of modern technologies, on the long-term objectives in the field of information technologies, and informatization projects.
Closing the conference, the Chairman of the National Statistical Committee of the Republic of Belarus Vladimir Zinovsky thanked all the participants for the very fruitful work and assured them of the commitment to implement the AGA recommendations to make the statistics of Belarus more focused, innovative and dynamic in future.
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