On the 3rd of February, in Rome, Italy, was held the Conference with the theme "International cooperation in the field of official statistics and geography", organized by the e Italian Geographical Society (SGI) in partnership with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of the Republic of Moldova and the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat).

The purpose of the event was to evaluate the main results obtained within the project “Technical Assistance to Support the National Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Moldova” (ParStat), financed by the European Union (EU) and implemented in the period 2019-2022 by a consortium of the Italian Geographical Society and the National Statistical Institutes of Italy, Poland and Denmark.

Attending the event, the Director general of the NBS, Oleg Cara, mentioned that the ParStat project is an example of strengthening institutional collaboration between statisticians and geographers from Moldova and Italy. Mr. Oleg Cara outlined the most important achievements within the project, emphasizing the essential contribution of the modernization processes of the official Moldovan statistics in accordance with the European good practices in order to better meet the needs of users for reliable and relevant statistics, as well as in the context of the accession of the Republic of Moldova to the EU.

The modernization processes launched by the NBS, to be continued, cover an extensive spectrum of activities and include:

• alignment of national statistics with European standards, to ensure the reliability and international comparability of national statistics;

• development of the quality management system;

• modernisation of statistical information production methods, based on processes;

• modernization of the data collection methods, data processing and statistical dissemination tools by applying new technologies, tools and procedures to ensure prompt reaction to users' demands to improve statistical services;

• diversification of statistical products and services;

• integration of spatial data with statistical data;

• development of an integrated information system, which allows the efficiency of production processes and the standardisation of applications to ensure high data quality;

• use of new available data sources, non-traditional data, primarily administrative and private data, but also big data (Big Data), artificial intelligence (AI) for the production of official statistics, etc.

It should be noted that, in the context of the conference, the Director general of the NBS, Oleg Cara, had meetings with Gian Carlo Blangiardo, President of the Italian Institute of Statistics (Istat), Claudio Cerreti, President of the GSI, José Rosero Moncayo, Director of the Statistics Division within the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and Anatolie Urecheanu, Ambassador of the Republic of Moldova in the Republic of Italy, Malta and the Republic of San Marino, regarding the current activities and perspectives of cooperation for the further modernization of official statistics in the Republic of Moldova in accordance with European and international good practices.