P. Nicholl Talked With the Representatives of Eurostat

The Governor of the Central Bank of BH (CBBH) Peter Nicholl welcomed consideration of possible new EC programs for assistance to BH statistical services and urged that priority be given to supporting the collection of new economic data from enterprises as the basis for much-needed improvements in the national accounts and price statistics.

On 29 April, the Governor discussed with the representatives of the Statistical Office of the European Communities (EUROSTAT) Mr. Kjartan Bjornsson and Mr. Ronald Delemont, the current status of BH statistical services, delays in implementing the State Law on Statistics and the serious shortcomings in existing macroeconomic statistics, especially the national accounts, price indices and foreign trade statistics needed as the basis for monitoring the economic situation and for economic policy-making. The mission was visiting BH, among other things, to assess the need for future programs of assistance in statistics.

Governor Nicholl urged that future EC assistance for BH statistics should focus on supporting the collection of new economic data to replace inadequate existing administrative and other source data used for compiling the national accounts and price indices. He proposed that priority be given to collecting detailed data from enterprises in economic censuses that would be used for improving statistics of gross domestic product (GDP), developing new price indices that would assist in developing estimates of GDP, establishing the basis for future regular economic surveys and assisting in building better statistical registers of businesses.

The Governor thanked the mission for EC efforts to improve the statistical system of BH and looked forward to new EC programs that would lead to much improved economic statistics.

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