The official closing ceremony of the EU funded Twinning project “Strengthening the capacity of the Georgian Statistical System”, carried between the National Statistics Office of Georgia and Statistics Denmark was held today, on November 24, 2021. At the opening ceremony, Gogita Todradze, Executive Director of Geostat, addressed the attendants by the opening speech and spoke about the activities and results of the project.

At the closing ceremony, Catalin Gherman, the Deputy Head of Cooperation of the EU Delegation to Georgia, Mr. Esben Emborg, Honorary Consul of Denmark in Georgia, Carsten Ulrik Zangenberg, Director of Communication and Sales of Statistics Denmark, David Bujiashvili representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia and other high-level guests also talked about the importance of the strengthening statistical system.

The Twinning project funded by the EU aimed to facilitate to the main goals of the Association Agreement signed between the European Union and Georgia, along with timely, reliable, and internationally comparable data production by Geostat and its approximation to the European standards. The Twinning project was launched in April 2019 and included four main components: External Trade, National Accounts, Business Statistics, and Social Statistics. 75 expert missions and 6 study visits in Statistics Denmark and the Czech Statistical Office have been carried out successfully within the project.

At the project closing ceremony, the Executive Director of Geostat emetized the significant achievements of the Twinning project. Among which the introduction and development of new international methodologies and standards in the field of National Accounts and Social Statistics are noteworthy.

Within the project, Geostat carried out Mirror Comparison in International Merchandise Trade Statistics (IMTS), which is one of the most commonly used instruments in trade for comparison of data quality in external trade statistics between partner countries. The comparison was followed by the selection of six partner countries (Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Romania) and the largest commodity groups relevant to them.

It should be noted that one of the most important achievements in the National Accounts was introduction of a new methodology - the System of National Accounts (SNA 2008) by the end of 2019, that included a transition to the new System of National Accounts (SNA 2008), as well as calculation of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and a number of macroeconomic indicators, in accordance with the new methodology.

Moreover, the introduction of new standards by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Labour Force Statistics was another priority of the project. In December 2020, Geostat published the data on unemployment and employment calculated according to the new standards.

Significant methodological changes also were made in terms of the development of Business Statistics, in particular, improvement of the Business Register, production of new indicators in Short Term Statistics, development of Tourism Statistics, etc.

The EU funded Twinning Project “Strengthening the capacity of the Georgian Statistical System” between the National Statistics Office of Georgia and Statistics Denmark lasted for 2 years and 8 months.