This was discussed at the
eighteenth meeting of the Advisory Committee for Statistics under the Eurasian
Economic Commission’s Board held on April 14 in Moscow under the chairmanship
of Sergei Glazyev, EEC Minister in charge of Integration and Macroeconomics.
The prime focus was
on pressing issues of planning and implementing measures in the field of
statistics for 2021-2025 with due regard to the Strategic Directions for
Developing the Eurasian Economic Integration until 2025.
The main emphasis was on the
expediency of making amendments to the Treaty on the EAEU in the field of
statistics which would broaden the Commission’s powers to approve a single
procedure for accounting and declaring goods in mutual trade. It was decided to
submit the Committee’s agreed position by June 1, 2021.
Besides, the Committee’s
members discussed the conversion of mutual trade indicators according to
official data of the Member States from national currencies to the Russian
ruble. Some measures for converting and further interaction with the countries’
tax authorities have been determined.
The Advisory
Committee addressed the issue of enforcement practices for failure to provide
statistical data on mutual trade. Establishing the responsibility of
respondents for non-submission of statistical reporting forms is one of the
tools for improving the quality of statistics.
The meeting attendees supported measures to form official statistics describing
activities of foreign-invested enterprises. These measures were developed as
part of implementing initiatives voiced in the address by Kassym-Jomart
Tokayev, President of the Republic of Kazakhstan and Chairman of the Supreme
Eurasian Economic Council, to the Heads of the Member States in January 2021 in
relation to creating the Union’s joint ventures in manufacturing industry,
agriculture and service sector. The questionnaire elaborated by the
Commission’s Statistics Department on the availability of official statistics
describing the activities of foreign-invested enterprises was approved. Formats
for providing official statistics to the Eurasian Economic Commission will be
updated based on the results of the survey.
Furthermore, the
attendees discussed statistics digitalization, in particular, expanding the
preparation of concepts and data structures for statistical sections and
improving the efficiency of personal account functioning. The sides submitted
proposals to enhance their involvement in developing digital technologies. In
particular, an information platform for sharing experiences in implementing the
SDMX standard will be created and a seminar on "Introducing digital
technologies in the EAEU statistics" will be held in October.
The EEC Statistics Department presented the Advisory Committee with a
questionnaire on the impact of COVID-19 on the monitoring and achievement of
the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the EAEU countries drafted
with regard to international experience. It addresses some issues
of collecting, processing and disseminating official statistics during the
COVID-19 pandemic as well as methods for collecting statistical data and
assessing the impact of COVID-19 on achieving the SDGs.