WIESBADEN GROUP ON BUSINESS REGISTERS - ROUNDTABLE ON BUSINESS SURVEY FRAMES
Purpose
The Wiesbaden Group on Business Registers is an international expert group under the umbrella of the UN Statistical Commission engaged in further development of business registers, survey frames and associated topics. The aim of the Wiesbaden Group is to provide a forum for the exchange of views and experience s and the conduct of joint experiments related to the development, maintenance and use of business registers to support a more integrated approach to structural economic statistics, to better fit into new, globalisation-related- analytical needs . survey sampling and other statistical activities related to the production of business statistics. It is engaged with contemporary and emerging issues in the development and use of business registers. In particular, the Wiesbaden Group aims at tackling forward looking matters and identifying new challenges concerning business registers in the wider sense. A UN City Group, it analyses the changing nature and role of business registers as backbone of business statistics and as sources of statistical data in their own right.
The Wiesbaden Group is an informal body and participation is on a voluntary basis. Participants, however, are required to contribute to the programme of the biannual meetings. Although its mandate does not emanate from a formal body, the Wiesbaden Group could, on the basis of its discussions and/or experiments, make recommendations to a formal body (e.g., the Statistical Commission) regarding the consideration and/or adoption of certain practices or standards.
At the last meeting in Wiesbaden, Germany, the former “Roundtable on Business Survey Frames” was renamed to “Wiesbaden Group on Business Registers” – as such it adopts the convention of naming UN City Groups and reflects the changing role of business registers as the backbone of business statistics and as sources of statistical data in their own right.
Year organized
1986 ( Ottawa )
Meetings (held mainly annually, in future biannually)
First meeting: Ottawa, May 1986
Last meeting: Wiesbaden, Germany, 21-26 October 2007 21 st Meeting at the OECD , Paris , November 2008, entitled “The Central Place of Business R egister Systems in Response to Globalisation Needs”.
Link:
www.oecd.org/std/industry-services/wiesbadengroup2008
Participating countries/statistical agencies at the 2008 meeting in Paris
Australia, Austria, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech republic, Chile, China, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, the Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat), European Central Bank (ECB), Finland, France, Germany, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Mexico, Mozambique, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, South Africa, Switzerland Sweden, Tajikistan, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE; Statistics division) and the United States.
Topics discussed at the Wiesbaden meeting in November 2008:
- The need for global, integrated , statistical systems – identifying best practices for BRs (producer perspective and user perspective) Introduction of new business register tools and systems
- Costs and benefits of profiling Classification systems within business registers
- Concepts and methods for information and data sharing Role of the business register in a future statistical system
- Projects on the improvement of Business Registers Benchmarking tools for business registers
- Information from additional administrative data sources Business profiling
- New areas of research
- Entrepreneurship indicators, business demography and SME statistics
- Integrating economic business statistics with trade
- Measuremetn of m ultinationals and enterprise groups
- The needs and solutions in OECD accession countries, BIICS , and developing countries Multinational groups
- Outcome and conclusions of sessions 1 to 7, the way forward
Future activities of the Wiesbaden Group
Next meeting :
The next meeting of the Wiesbaden Group in November 2008 will be held in Estonia, 27-30 September 2010. in Paris ( France), organised by the OECD. As the meetings of the Wiesbaden Group and the joint UNECE/OECD/Eurostat seminar on business registers have commond got many overlapping points in their agendas, the Wiesbaden group agreed to hold face-to-face meetings every second year only, alternating with the joint UNECE/OECD/Eurostat meetings. The next joint UNECE/OECD/E urostat seminar will take place 6-7 October 2009, hosted by Eurostat . principle Generally , the Wiesbaden Group and the joint seminar are aiming to complement one another. In this respect the agendas of both meetings should be coordinated in advance. For those years without a Wiesbaden Group meeting, I it was recommended that national progress reports, and any other papers of interest, should be collected and disseminated via the Wiesbaden Group website (circa).
Steering Group activities :
In 2005 a steering group was set up, actually composed by Australia, Eurostat, France, Germany, OECD, UNECE, the United Kingdom and the United States (BLS). Besides assisting the host of the next meeting the steering group will
- ensure coordination with meetings on related topics,
- promote the output of the Wiesbaden Group,
- actively engage the UN Statistical Commission and other senior management forums to promote the work of the Wiesbaden Group and seek their inputs regarding future activities.
- devise Terms of Reference
Work plan and major topics of the next conference(s) :
The challenges for business registers development resulting form globalisation have already been highlighted in previous conferences. The next meeting will progress work on further aspects of globalisation. The focus for the next years (until 2010) will include the following topics:
- Profiling (Costs and Benefits)
- Concepts and Methods for Information and Data Sharing
- Business Registers and Business Statistics in Developing Countries
Greater support of developing countries (sponsoring)
Several delegates from developing countries expressed an interest in attending the 200 8 7 conference, but some could not afford the travel and hotel costs. Thus, funding for participation still remains the biggest barrier for developing countries. The steering group should consider one of its aims to encourage national statistical offices and other bodies to provide funding.
Products
All reports and papers of the Wiesbaden Group were made public through the CIRCA website.
http://forum.europa.eu.int/irc/dsis/businessurvey/info/data/links.htm
Point of contact
Andreas Lindner
Head of International Trade and Globalisation Statistics Section (TAGS)
Statistics Directorate/PASS
OECD
Tel: (331) 4524 9544
Fax: (331) 4524 9814
Email: andreas.lindner@oecd.org
Contact for information on the next meeting, to be held in Estonia in 2010
Svetlana Shutova
Head of Statistical Profile Service
Enterprise Statistics Department
Statistics Estonia
Tel: (372) 625 9346
Fax: (372) 625 9370
Email: svetlana.shutova@stat.ee
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