Deputy Head of the EU Delegation to Serbia Oskar Benedikt paid a visit to the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia on the occasion of delivery of the donation of IT equipment which has significantly improved the work of the Office.
The Project “Strengthening the Serbian statistical system by upgrading methodologies and standards and by appliance of good practice”, whose user is SORS and which was financed by the EU, focusing on further development of information – communication system, modernization and upgrading of business operations in the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia.
The European Union’s donation amounted to EUR 600 thousand, thus providing new infrastructure for the data processing Centre, network infrastructure, servers, computers and other peripheral equipment, significantly improving SORS activities.
National IT company ComTrade, has successfully implemented the Project, focused on further upgrading of information – communication system, with the aim of modernization and improvement of operations and activities of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia.
Besides the equipment donation, EU provided additional 3.4 million EUR for further upgrading of the information – communication system of SORS, national accounts improvement, as well as continued improvement of sustainable development indicators.
In the following two years of project duration, among the other activities, SORS endeavours to improve coordination, cooperation and communication with all official statistics producers, and also to provide professional assistance to the competent institutions regarding methodologies creating and improving quality and reliability of the collected data. Thus, data measuring and planning of national and international development goals will be upgraded.
The Project also contributes to fulfilling the obligations from the area of Chapter 18 (statistics), regarding the EU membership, and moreover, official statistics is to provide the data for 16 other Chapters (out of total of 35), particularly in the areas of economy, finances, agriculture and regional policy.
This Project is of the outmost importance also from the aspect of national needs, considering the fact that improvement in the EU integrations process is estimated according to official statistical data
This Project is the part of continued EU support to SORS for development of the statistical system of Serbia. Over the last 15 years, non-refundable aid of the EU amounted to EUR 35 million.
