The assurance of high quality of statistical products and services from the users' perspectives has become a major concern for the national statistical institutes, including the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of the Republic of Moldova. The implementation of the European Statistics Code of Practice (CoP) - an useful tool intended to assess, monitor and promote the quality of statistics based on common criteria of European Statistical System - aims to achieve this goal.

The paper presents the results of evaluation of compliance of Moldovan statistics (through that of the activity of NBS) with the principles stipulated in the Code of Practice. This exercise has been carried out on the basis of self-assessment questionnaire, used by the ESS statistical institutes as a common evaluation and reporting tool of the compliance with CoP within the comprehensive study carried out by Eurostat in 2005- 2006.

The evaluation identifies the existing gaps in national statistics to meet the requirements stipulated in the Code of Practice.

Bibliography:

1. Eurostat (2007): Handbook on Data Quality Assessment Methods and Tools. Written by Bergdahl M., Ehling M., Elvers E., Földesi E., Körner Th., Kron A., Lohauß P., Mag K., Morais V., Nimmergut A., Sæbø H. V., Timm U., Zilhão M. J.

2. Stefanescu E.D., Dumitrescu I.(2008). The challenges of European statistics: the European Statistics Code of Practice in official statistics. International Conference on Applied Statistics, Bucharest

3. Voineagu V., Szep K. and others (2009). The European Statistics Code of Practice-comparisons regarding the implementation within the National Institute of Statistics from Romania and the Hungarian Central Statistical Office. The Romanian Statistical Review, 10, pp. 37-52

4. Commission of the European Communities (2008). Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on implementation of the Code of Practice.Brussels, 7.10.2008COM (2008) 621 final, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2008:0621:FIN:EN:PDF

5. European Statistics Code of Practice, http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/quality/code_of_practice.

Keywords: European Statistics Code of Practice; Self-assessment; Quality management; Communication

Biography: Graduated from Agricultural University in Chisinau, Republic of Moldova, in1987. Bachelor on Economics and Administration.

Since 1995 - the activity in National Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Moldova. Since 1997 - Deputy General Director of this institution.