In 2021 Statistics Poland (GUS) participated in the project "Improving Statistics Development in Ukraine", which concerned enterprise statistics and the State Statistics Service of Ukraine was its beneficiary. The project was coordinated by the OECD. Apart from OECD and GUS experts, it was also attended by representatives of the Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics. Organizational patronage was also held by the Poland’s and Israel’s foreign affairs services. The aim of the project was to support the capacity-building development of Ukrainian statistics to produce and collect relevant data that can serve as a key input for policymaking.

The project fulfilled the framework of the Polish development cooperation program coordinated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On the part of Statistics Poland, it was carried out by the Enterprises Department, the Programming and Coordination of Statistical Surveys Department and the Social Surveys Department. The International Relations and Statistical Cooperation Department was the project coordinator in GUS.

Due to the restrictions in movement related to the epidemic threat, the entire project was carried out on-line in the form of three webinars:

• First webinar „Methodology for compiling statistics to analyse the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), including at regional and local levels”, 27 April 2021
• Second webinar „Methods and standards for developing questionnaires and surveys”, 13 July 2021
• Third webinar „Methodology for calculating enterprise demography statistics”, 9 November 2021

During the on-line meetings, Polish experts familiarized Ukrainian statisticians with national experience in the field of small and medium-sized enterprises and business demography statistics, as well as good practices and challenges related to the implementation of the EU regulation on structural business statistics. Additionally, issues related to the legal aspect of conducting research in Poland, methods and organizational standards in the field of creating statistical research forms, as well as testing electronic forms were presented. Other aspects raised were issues concerning the use of administrative data, the designation of small and medium-sized enterprises and data relating to them. During the meetings, in addition to the presentations, Q&A sessions were held, which enjoyed great interest on the part of the Ukrainian side. At the same time, during the meetings, several exercises were carried out to check the understanding of the content conveyed.

The implementation of the project was very well assessed both in terms of content and organization.

Detailed information about the project with a project report has been published on OECD website at: https://www.oecd.org/eurasia/countries/ukraine/statisticsdevelopment.htm.