The representatives of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia visited statistical institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Tomaž Smrekar, director, and Andreja Hočevar, in charge of international cooperation at the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, talked with the hosts about the experiences in the realisation of statistical projects that stand before the statistical institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In addition to exchange of experience related to the implementation of the last population and household census and the census of agriculture, along with the use of administrative sources for statistical purposes, one of the topics was the realisation of a Peer review (analysis of the compliance of a country's statistical system with the principles of the EU Code of Practice), which should be conducted in our country for the first time.

“The visit of colleagues from Slovenia at this moment is prominent as Bosnia and Herzegovina gained the candidate status for EU membership, thus the statistical institutions will have a lot of work to do. In fulfilling BiH's obligations in the process of gaining membership, one of the chapters refers to the improvement of official statistics and its harmonization with EU standards. What’s more, statistical data will be needed for the most of the other chapters as well,” said Vesna Ćužić, Director of the Agency for Statistics of BiH.

Ćuzić said that colleagues from Slovenia are very open to every segment of cooperation and assistance, including their experiences on the organisation and implementation of activities during the EU accession process. Representatives of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia are also ready to provide expert assistance to colleagues in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the preparation process for Peer review.