The conference dedicated to the closing ceremony of the Twinning Project “Support to the State Statistical Committee and the State Tax Service under the Ministry of Economy to strengthen collection, harmonization, analysis, publishing and dissemination of business statistics” was held in Baku on 11 April.

Participants of the Conference first visited the alley of Honour to pay tribute to the founder of our independent state, national leader of our people Heydar Aliyev and laid a wreath at his grave. Later, the participants of the event visited the Alley of Martyrs and commemorated the heroic sons of Motherland who died in the struggle for independence and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

Mr. Tahir Budagov, Chairman of the State Statistical Committee made an opening speech and welcomed the conference participants. He noted that as a result of socio-economic reforms successfully implemented under the leadership of Mr. Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, modern Azerbaijan is recognized as one of the countries confidently developing in the world, successfully overcoming the global financial and economic crises, creating a unique national development model. The independent and sovereign Azerbaijan enters the strategic phase which is qualitatively new in the post-pandemic and post-conflict period and covers the period until 2030. In the new strategic period, characterized by the restoration of the territorial integrity of the country, it is necessary to further increase the power of the Azerbaijan through deep structural and institutional reforms to find sources of high economic growth, provide a historical return and eternal settlement to the liberated regions. One of the main goals at the current stage is to ensure the sustainability of dynamic socio-economic development in the long term, while official statistics are of particular importance in the planning, evaluation and analysis of these works.

It was noted that the overall objective of the project was to increase capacity among local operators to collect, harmonise, analyse, publish and disseminate Business Statistics measuring the performance of the private sector/SMEs in Azerbaijan. Relevant measures were implemented within the project to improve the statistical business registers and to align business statistics methodology with EU standards also taking into account the needs of users of these statistics. The implementation of the Twinning project consisting of 3 components started in June 2020 and was fully implemented for 22 months.

Mr Tahir Budagov emphasized the conduction of two Twinning projects and one technical assistance project by the State Statistics Committee in joint cooperation with the European Union and gave brief information about the first Twinning project dedicated to reach European standards in national accounts, non-observed economy, business statistics and producer price indices and the second Twinning project that covered the issues to improve dissemination of statistics through statistical quality management system and geographic information system, bringing official statistics on population income and living conditions, disability and tourism in harmonization in line with European standards.

It was noted that due to COVID-19 pandemic, some of the activities envisaged in the framework of the project “Support to the State Statistical Committee and the State Tax Service under the Ministry of Economy to strengthen collection, harmonization, analysis, publishing and dissemination of business statistics” were implemented online. Since September 9 2021 the Resident Twinning Advisor of the project started his work at the State Statistical Committee, visits of foreign experts to Azerbaijan were organized and the study visits of country specialist to partner countries took place. Despite the pandemic problems, the objectives set within the project were achieved. Thus, concrete measures were taken to improve the quality of data exchange between the State Tax Service under the Ministry of Economy and the State Statistical Committee, content and organization processes of business statistics, including small and medium business statistics were updated and capacity of staff of the State Statistical Committee, the State Tax Service under the Ministry of Economy and SMB Development Agency on data collection, harmonization, analysis, publishing and dissemination of business statistics was increased.

Chief of State Tax Service under the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Azerbaijan Orkhan Nazarli, Chairman of the Management Board of SMB Orkhan Mammadov, Head of Cooperation Section of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan Viktor Bojkov, Country Manager for World Bank in Azerbaijan Sara Michael, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Finland to the Republic of Azerbaijan Kirsti Narinen, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Lithuania to the Republic of Azerbaijan Egidijus Navikas, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Kingdom of Netherlands to the Republic of Azerbaijan Pauline Eizema, Director General of Statistics Finland Marcus Sovala, Director General of Statistics Lithuania Jurate Petrauskiene delivered speeches at the confrence.

Later Ms. Hannele Orjala, Mr. Ville-Matti Pilvio from Statistics Finland, Ms. Raimonda Simiene from Statistics Lithuania, Mr. Guus van de Burgt from Statistics Netherlands, Mr. Gasim Aliyev and Mr. Nuru Suleymanov from the State Statistical Committee made presentations about implemented work on project components.

Representatives of state bodies, heads of embassies and international organizations accredited in Azerbaijan, representatives of statistical agencies of foreign countries, members of Statistical Council under the State Statistical Committee attended the conference.