Skopje, 1st November 2021

"Statistics, a vaccine to protect democracy and fight the virus of disinformation.” Under this motto of the European Statistics Committee, with lectures at the faculties of economics at four universities in the country, the National Bank marked the European Statistics Day in the past two weeks. This year, the lectures were aimed at young economists, as significant users of the statistical data published by the National Bank, for the sole purpose of promoting the value and benefits of statistics in the decision-making process.

The lectures at the faculties of economics at the Ss Cyril and Methodius universities in Skopje (UKIM), Goce Delchev in Stip and American College - Skopje, as well as at the Faculty of Agriculture - direction agroeconomics at UKIM, were organized with efforts of the teaching staff, and were prepared and given by the team of the Statistics Department of the National Bank. In the lectures, the Manager of the Department, Sultanija Bojcheva-Terzijan referred to all key aspects related to the statistical data prepared by the National Bank - monetary statistics and interest rate statistics, external statistics and financial accounts statistics. The lecturers also discussed the international standards in the field of statistics, which are implemented in the National Bank statistics. The lectures also covered more detailed professional reviews, that will also be beneficial to young researchers, thus covering the use of the statistical web portal “NBStat”.

We are especially pleased with the interest shown by the students, whereby the lectures opened a larger number of professional questions, to which the team of the Statistics Department of the National Bank made efforts to give detailed answers. But, of course, the communication and the cooperation do not stop here, because the willingness and the everyday practice of the statisticians from the National Bank to give an explanation and information in the field of central-banking statistics, which are or will be the subject of interest to young economists, was confirmed.