The European Union will continue to provide support to the Serbian statistical system to develop and improve Serbian statistical system in accordance with requirements of the process of approximation to the European Statistical System. This will be done through the project “Strengthening the Serbian statistical system by upgrading methodologies and standards and by appliance of good practice” funded by the EU with 3,5 million EUR which implementation was announced on the conference held in Belgrade.

Opening speeches were held by Mr Pieter Everaers,Director for Cooperation in the European Statistical System, international cooperation and resources, Eurostat and Dr Miladin Kovacevic, Director of the Serbian Statistical Office (SORS).

Harmonize of methodologies, standards and good practices, applied for the production of a reliable statistical basis necessary for Serbian’s social and economic system in view of accession to the EU were presented on the conference aiming to increase public awareness of its importance from the perspective of state institutions, business, universities, media and the general public.

The focus of the project, of which the main beneficiary is SORS is on further development of the Statistical Office ICT system, improvement of the National Account system in connection with the preparation of Supply and Use Tables as well as on the enhancement of the current development of new Sustainable Development Indicators. These activities are in line with requirements of the process of approximation of Serbian statistical system with the European Statistical System.

In scope of the same project, the European Union has also donated EUR 600,000 to SORS, thus providing the new infrastructure for Data processing center, network infrastructure, servers, computers and other peripheral equipment. The donation is of huge importance, both for implementation of the project and for future activities of SORS.

The project is being implemented in April 2016 and will continue until December 2017 by consortium led by GOPA.

The conference was attended by representatives of the Delegation of EU to the Republic of Serbia, ministries, international organizations, regulatory bodies, scientific institutions as well as representatives of the chambers of commerce and business associations.

For more information about the project please visit:

SORS http://webrzs.stat.gov.rs/WebSite/; http://webrzs.stat.gov.rs/ipa2012n_rzs/indexen.html