Elena Petrova, expert in the NSI Business Statistics Directorate, together with her Dutch colleague Nino Platteel, is training statisticians from the National Statistical Offices of the Balkan countries. It is a three-day training course and is carried out in Cologne, Germany, on 4-6 July 2011. The course organizer is ICON-INSTITUT Public Sector GmbH – Germany, which manages statistical cooperation programmes through the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) of the European Commission.

For the first time NSI expert is conducting such a training course. Ms Petrova, proposed by Eurostat as a trainer, is presenting to the audience the national characteristics in the implementation of the requirements of Council Regulation (EEC) 3924/91 on the establishment of a Community survey of industrial production (PRODCOM survey) in different EU Member States. The following topics are covered:

• Use of the Statistical Business Register as a source for drawing the samples of the PRODCOM survey
• Sampling, census or a mix approach
• Variables used in the national survey and their definition
• Kinds of questionnaires
• Dealing with missing data
• Data checking and verification
• National confidentiality rules

Selecting a Bulgarian expert as a trainer in an international training course is considered as acknowledgement of the Bulgarian statistics and appreciation of NSI as an institution with capacity to provide expertise to countries in a process of harmonizing their legislation with the statistical acquis communautaire.