A first OECD workshop on ‘Improving Business statistics in Armenia’ was held under the EU4Business programme on 4 October in Yerevan. Representatives from different stakeholders involved in the production and analysis of business statistics took part in the event, including the State Statistical Service, Central Bank of Armenia, Ministry of Economic Development and Investments, and the State Revenue Committee.
The workshop was the first of three organised in Armenia, as part of a new EU4Business project aimed at ‘Improving Business Statistics in Armenia’ implemented by the OECD.
Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Investment Tigran Khachatryan opened the seminar emphasising the importance of having consistent business statistics in order to design, implement and monitor effective SME policies. Stanislav Toshkov from the EU Delegation underlined that improving statistics and aligning definitions to EU standards is one of the key pillars of the co-operation between Armenia and the EU.
Experts from the OECD and Austria provided international good practice and technical insights on business demography. The focus of the discussion was on how to create a national business register combining administrative and statistical data. Further key issues raised included: a transparent exchange of data between state institutions, identification of single economically active businesses and how to define SMEs based on EU definition.
The project is part of the new broader regional initiative ‘EU4Business: Supporting competitiveness and business environment reforms in the Eastern Partnership 2017-2020’ co-funded by the EU and implemented across the Eastern Partnership by the OECD. The one-year action to support SME statistics in Armenia will be implemented by the OECD in close co-operation with the Support to SME Development in Armenia (SMEDA) project.
The aim of the project in Armenia is to build capacity in Armenian institutions to collect, harmonise, analyse, publish and disseminate official SME statistics. Its activities will includes three capacity building workshops, as well as the development of a methodology to harmonise the production of SME statistics, and support in the preparation of an SME statistics report.
The second and third workshops will follow in February and May 2018.
