A workshop on business statistics was held in the Armenian capital Yerevan on 15-16 March, which focused on business demography and SME financing indicators. The workshop – the second in a series – was organised in the framework of the EU-funded project on ‘Improving Business Statistics in Armenia’, part of the EU4Business: From Policies to Action programme, implemented by the OECD.
The purpose of the workshop was to share international standards and discuss definitions and methods for producing entrepreneurship and SME financing statistics. The OECD-Eurostat Entrepreneurship Indicators Programme and the OECD Scoreboard on Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs were used as reference frameworks for the development of policy-relevant and internationally-comparable indicators.
On the first day, OECD experts shared international best practice on issues concerning the definition of small and medium-sized enterprises for statistical and policy purposes, as well as innovative approaches for the development of business indicators based on linking different datasets.
The second day focused on the methodology to compile core indicators of SME financing, highlighting the OECD Scoreboard on Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs, which documents the state of access to finance for entrepreneurs and SMEs and annually monitors trends in 39 OECD and non-OECD countries
The workshop was attended by key stakeholders involved in the production and use of business and SME financing statistics, including the Ministry of Economic Development and Investments, the National Statistics Service, the Central Bank, as well as the EU Delegation to Armenia.
The aim of the project in Armenia is to build capacity in Armenian institutions to collect, harmonise, analyse, publish and disseminate official SME statistics. Its activities will includes three capacity building workshops, as well as the development of a methodology to harmonise the production of SME statistics, and support in the preparation of an SME statistics report.