Enterprise statistics’ role in monitoring economic growth
Enterprise statistics are closely connected to R&D, innovation, and ICT statistics. Experts specialising in these fields attendedInternational Seminar on Industrial Statistics held in Vienna on 11—13 June. Natalia Kovaleva, director of the ISSEK’s Centre for Statistics and Monitoring of Education, presented a review of Russian enterprise statistics, and spoke about the institute’s research in the area of statistics and monitoring economics of knowledge.
Commenting on Ms Kovaleva’s presentation, Shyam Upadhyaya, head of UNIDO Statistics Unit, the seminar’s host and a friend of the HSE, spoke about the close cooperation between UNIDO and Rosstat statisticians, and about successful joint projects with the Higher School of Economics.
United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) was established in 1966 and since 1985 is the UN agency responsible for promoting sustainable industrial growth in developing countries and countries with economy in transition. UNIDO Statistics Unit’s mandate includes development of methodology for enterprise statistics, data collection, creation and presentation of compatible international databases. Its responsibilities also cover supporting integrated international enterprise statistics databases, and disseminating relevant data the world over.
The Vienna seminar was devoted to the latter – informational – area of UNIDO Statistics Unit’s activities. At the beginning of the year the 20th edition of Industrial Statistics yearbook was published, presenting new statistical data about volumes, structure and dynamics of industrial development in various countries and regions. This publication - unquestionably a major achievement of UNIDO Statistics – already became a classic reference, noted Revue D'économie Industrielle.
The seminar’s participants included researchers from international organisations (UNIDO and OECD), and various countries (Austria, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, Russia, USA, etc.). The experts discussed common enterprise statistics topics and main techniques; international compatibility of data; historical development and the current state of enterprise statistics in specific countries; analysed connections between this statistical area and other fields such as environmental statistics; and spoke about enterprise statistics’ effect over political decision-making.
UNIDO’s statistical products and approaches provide a good common platform, so the seminar made a major contribution to strengthening connections between various countries’ statisticians.
Enterprise statistics play an important role in developing industrial strategies, analysing structural changes, and monitoring economic growth. Modern enterprise statistics combine administrative data centrally collected via:
- regularly updated fully computerised business registries;
- annual surveys which allow to define main industry development indicators;
- monthly/quarterly reports which include reliable estimates of short- and medium-term trends.
By Natalia Kovaleva