EU-Report Accession Bulgaria

Chapter 12: Statistics

Bulgaria has continued to make progress over the past year.

As regards statistical infrastructure, there were no recent changes.

Concerning classifications, there have been no significant changes since the last Regular Report.

Concerning demographic and social statistics, further progress has been made since the last Regular Report and a good level of compliance has been achieved. The results of the March 2001 population census have been made available and are now used for population projections and migration statistics. Most other surveys in this area are now in place and for these data transmission takes place as required.

As regards availability of statistics at regional level, there has been an increase in the number of indicators available at levels 2 and 3 under the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS 2 and 3).

In the field of macro-economic statistics, an improvement in the exhaustiveness and timeliness of national accounts can be reported. The development of the financial account has now started in close co-operation with the Bulgarian National Bank and the Ministry of Finance. The Harmonised Consumer Price Index is now largely compliant with EC standards.

For business statistics, good compliance can be reported for structural business statistics as well as for service and tourism statistics. For short-term statistics, first steps have been made to reach full compliance for the industry and construction sectors. Further efforts to improve the business register have also been made during the past year.

For transport statistics, many areas like road transport of goods and air and port statistics are now in line with the acquis.

For external trade, work is under way to improve the quality of primary data involving co-operation between the Customs Agency and the National Statistical Institute (NSI) to develop additional requirements for data control and checks. The NSI is also conducting comparisons of data on trade flows with other countries and has started preparing for INTRASTAT, the system measuring trade among Member States.

For agricultural statistics, during the past year, Bulgaria has made progress in testing the methodologies and questionnaires for the farm structure survey, the farm typology, and livestock and vineyard surveys. Good progress has been made to strengthen the administrative infrastructure and to enlarge the already good co-operation with the Ministry of Agriculture.

Overall assessment

Bulgaria's statistical infrastructure, the legal basis for statistics and the organisational structure of the NSI are now appropriate for fulfilment of tasks in this area. The NSI has improved its long-term and annual planning system through work to implement the Strategy for the Development of the statistical system for the period 2000-2006.

As regards administrative capacity, the high turnover of qualified staff has slowed the pace of progress during the past years. With this in mind, particular attention should be paid to further staff development and training in the statistics administration, especially training of staff in regional offices and establishing a career development system to encourage retention of qualified staff .

The NSI is still responsible for some administrative tasks which do not fall within the usual competence of a statistical office. When the NSI is finally relieved of these tasks (e.g. maintenance of administrative registers), some additional budgetary support will be needed to compensate for loss of revenues.

Particular efforts are required to further improve regional statistics, the quality and coverage of national accounts, short-term statistics and the quality and coverage of the business register. There is also a need to establish a farm register based on the data from the population census. An agriculture census is planned for 2003 and its results should help improving the quality of agriculture statistics. INTRASTAT is another area to be developed further.

The creation of information technology capacity remains a priority. Whilst some investments have been made, further training and investments are still needed to ensure that effective use is made of the equipment and the software applications, in particular for staff of regional offices.

Conclusion

In its 1997 Opinion, the Commission concluded that Bulgaria would need to make a sustained effort if it was to comply with EU requirements for official statistics in the medium term.

Since the Opinion, Bulgaria has made good progress, in particular in developing a planning system and a training strategy, conducting a population census and starting to develop the necessary administrative capacity.

Negotiations in this chapter have been provisionally closed. Bulgaria has not requested any transitional arrangements in this area. Bulgaria is generally meeting the commitments it has made in the accession negotiations in this field.

Bulgaria should focus further efforts on strengthening administrative capacity and on upgrading methodology and improving the quality and completeness of data in general.

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