In the framework of the EU-funded MEDSTAT IV project, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Palestine, upon their request, benefitted from targeted technical support to discuss their respective national strategies for the development of a statistical business register (SBR) and the design of roadmaps for their implementation.

This support was given by Mr Manlio Calzaroni, expert from ISTAT, Italy, during a meeting that took place in Amman on 3-4 May 2017.

In turn, each country presented its national strategy which was then discussed in details by the expert and by the other countries. The discussion was an opportunity to propose some concrete applications of the recommendations from the UN- Economic Commission for Europe on the proposed country strategies and road maps.

Mr Calzaroni developed a step by step approach for the development of an SBR with a precise content for each step. He then asked the participants to locate their respective countries in this general diagram in order to assess at which stage they were, what should be done next and how.

The question of matching the files from the several administrations involved in the creation and regular updating of the Business Register was identified as the major obstacle to the development of a sustainable process. The quality of the identification of the businesses is also a key element to consider.

The new platform established in Morocco, involving the main national partners in the SBR (Ministry of Finances, Social Security Office and the Chamber of Commerce) and the statistical institute was also presented and discussed. The platform allows an updating in real time for all of the changes and deletions made by one of the partners.

The next step with SBR will be the organisation of a study visit to the Institut National de la Statistique (INS) of Tunisia or to ISTAT Italy in order to see the functioning of efficient process where it is.

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Press release

MEDSTAT IV website