1. National Statistical Service of the Republic of Armenia Armenia experience Forwarding Armenian Statistics Through Twinning High Level Seminar for Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia Countries (EECCA) “Quality in Statistics: Metadata” 27-29 June 2012, Tbilisi, Georgia Ðì SA

2. General Since 2000, the National Statistical Service of the Republic of Armenia (NSS RA) has received a status of the state body implementing functions aimed at public interest that is independent from state and local self-government bodies in its activities. The NSS RA is centralized and financed from the state budget. Mission: to compile and publish statistics for public use. NSS RA includes the Central Statistical Office, 10 Marz (regional) and Yerevan city Agencies of Statistics. The Supreme Body of Governance: State Council on Statistics consisting of 7 members and authorized to accept normative legal acts on statistics. Head: President of the National Statistical Service of RA, who at the same time holds the post of the Chairman of the State Council on Statistics. The Head and 6 members of the Council are appointed for 6 year terms by the RA President` s Decree.

3. Main Functions to collect, process, summarize and publish statistical data, to cooperate with state and local self-government bodies in collection of statistical information, to develop and improve statistical methodologies, and coordinate data collection and dissemination according to international standards and classifications, to organize statistical surveys, to carry out population and agricultural censuses every 10 years, to establish, maintain and update the business-register, to ensure data security and statistical confidentiality, to provide users with statistical information, to ensure the transparency and access to aggregated statistical data and metadata, to cooperate with international organizations and national statistical offices.

4. Legal Basis RA Law “On State Statistics” adopted 04.04.2000. RA Law “On Population Census” adopted on 12.10.1999. RA Law “On Agricultural Census” adopted on 27.11.2008. State Statistical Work Programs: - three-year state statistical work program (Law) - annual state statistical work program Resolutions of the State Council on Statistics and other national and above-national normative acts. RA Law “On Civil Service” adopted on 04.12.2001. Provisions of the mentioned law have completely been acted for the NSS RA staff since 1 December 2002.

5. International Classifications and Standards NACE Rev.2 CPA - 2008 ISCO-88 ISCED HS/CN ICD-10 NUTS COICOP Armenia has become a subscriber to the IMF General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) since 29 March 2001. On November 7, 2003 the Republic of Armenia became the 54 th subscriber to the IMF Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS). Report on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSC) on Data Module for the Republic of Armenia by International Monetary Fund (IMF Country Report No. 09/50, February 2009) Armenia has been elected as a UN Statistical Commission member for a four-year period beginning 1 January 2009 in the UN Economic and Social Council`s organizational session held on 29 April 2008.

6. Global Assessment The Global Assessment of the National System of Official Statistics of the Republic of Armenia was jointly undertaken by the consultants of the European Commission (Eurostat), European Free Trade Association (EFTA), United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in January 2009. It was noted the high professional independence of the NSSRA, commitment to ensure high data quality, the consistency of used classifications and standards systems with international classifications and standards. The data collection methods, quality management and training system were found to be areas for improvement. Key areas for expected improvements: Price indices: consumer, production and - especially - the construction price indices, Exhaustiveness of national accounts and quarterly accounts, Building up statistical registers.

7. Forwarding Armenian Statistics Through Twinning General Objective is to harmonise Armenian statistics with EU standards Implementation period January 2011- January 2013 NSS RA’s main partner is Statistics Denmark Five other EU countries are involved: Germany (junior partner), Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania Focus on EU methodologies Sustainable results Administrative registers for statistical purposes The ENP/Twinning ”Forwarding Armenian Statistics Through Twinning“ webpage has been launched at the NSS RA`s website www.armstat.amwww.armstat.am

8. Six Components 1. Component Quality Management 2. Component Business statistics, response burden 3. Component Improvement of the Exhaustiveness of GDP 4. Component Agricultural Census 5. Component Harmonized Consumer Price Index 6. Component ICT Society

9. Component : QUALITY MANAGEMENT One result of the EU Twinning project “Forwarding Armenian Statistics through Twinning” aimed at enhancing the quality and role of statistics in Armenia. Objective of the “Quality Management” Component is Documentation, Metadata and quality indicators for all major collections of the NSS RA collected, systematized, published on NSS RA`s website at: www.armstat.am

10. Implementation Heads of statistical divisions have been informed about all forthcoming quality activities in meetings and through them the NSS RA`s staff According to NSS RA`s President Decree No 83-A dated 08.07.11 the Working Group on Quality Management was established, involving representatives from: Statistical Work Methodology and Classifications International Statistical Co-operation Statistical Information Dissemination and Marketing Information Technologies Business Register/sampling expert Price statistics Labour statistics Households Surveys Industry Statistics Agriculture Statistics

11. Quality declarations The list of NSS RA`s statistical products has been developed. During 2011 and 2012 quality declarations are being developed for each of the statistical products of NSS RA, currently 132 products which are organized under 16 statistical domains. Economy and finance Population and social processes Population and social processes Industry, construction, trade and services Transport and tourism Foreign trade Agriculture, forestry and fishing Environment and energy Quality declarations describe the regulatory background of statistics and the purpose, and explain to all statistical information users the statistics methodologies and its dissemination, how statistics is produced and how it should be interpreted and used, and other important information for users.

12. Current status “Documentation” webpage has been launched at the NSS RA`s website. The quality declarations are published on the NSS RA`s website www.armstat.am as they become available. www.armstat.am At this moment 55 Quality Declarations have been posted at the NSS RA`s website in Armenian and 35 in English. This activity has been highly appreciated by statistical information users, the NSS RA is continuing to get a positive feedback from users. It is giving us a possibility to enhance user awareness of the strengths and limitations of the produced statistics. We provide information on the main quality characteristics of each product in a user-friendly and accessible form so that users are able to assess product quality. The PC Axis dissemination tool has been installed and the work on Databank creation is being implemented.

13. Library and Internet The library is rich with all the statistical products of the NSS, statistical publications of other countries and international organizations, methodological handbooks, text-books, legal documents, etc. The statistics library is open to the general public. Library` s electronic catalogue is accessible from the Internet. Internet: http://www.armstat.am/www.armstat.info

14. Thank you NATIONAL STATISTICAL SERVICE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA 3 Government House Republic ave. Yerevan 0010 Republic of Armenia Telephone: (37410) 524 213 Fax: (37410) 521 921 E-mail: armstat@sci.am Internet: http://www.armstat.am/www.info.am