Developing the Statistics Information System for Businesses. Info Day on Twinning in Partnership with the Tunisian NSI

“Statistics is the heart of national development because it responds to the need for self-knowledge and provides information to support political decisions”, the First Secretary of the European Delegation in Tunis, Mr Odoardo Como, opened the floor at the Info Day on Twinning between the Italian consortium which was established by Formez, Istat, Isae and CSI-Piemonte, and the Tunisian NSI for “Developing the Information System for Business Statistics”.
The Info Day which was held on November 11th, had the target of rising awareness by the various Tunisian public bodies on the needs and opportunities for rendering the available information data bases accessible, in order to improve the quality of statistical production in the country. The Head of NSI, Khalifa Ben Fekih, and the Chairman of Istat, Luigi Biggeri, highlighted how the exploitation of the administrative sources already available by other national public bodies, is of central importance for current statistical production. The growing demand for statistical information, the need to reduce the number of surveys as well as the restriction of available resources for public statistics, are the factors which rendered the exploitation of administrative sources the most efficient operational solution.
The technical referents of the project, Luigi Meucci from Isae, Giuseppe Garofano from Istat, and Ali Bouzayeni from NSI, outlined and highlighted the strategic choices at the basis of project distribution. On the occasion of the Info Day, NSI executives and officials submitted the initial results of the work carried out with the Italian experts and outlined the objectives and activities to be concluded by December 2009. To strengthen production, dissemination and coordination in the sector of economic statistics is the core of the 2° Tunisian National Plan for Statistics (2007-11). So as to pursue this objective, the NSI with the support of the Technical Unit of the Ministry for Development and Cooperation, UGP3A, identified the intervention priorities with regard to the implementation of a new statistical business register, the updating of economic classification and the review of the processes of production and diffusion of business statistics.
After concluding the cognitive analysis and the competence statement, great attention was paid on integrating the activities related to the business register with the administrative sources on the adoption of nomenclatures and economic classifications as well as on creating an ad-hoc technological platform for supporting the whole survey system. Furthermore, the Italian experts will second Tunisian functionaries for editing the annual survey on businesses and formulating the new survey of internal trade.