Press Releases

“Statistics Today for a Better Tomorrow”

The European Statistics Day is celebrated for the third time on 20 October 2018. The celebration of the European Statistics Day, which complements World Statistics Day taking place every five years, aims at highlighting the important role of official statistics in our society. Official statistics provide a comprehensive picture of socio-economic and other issues, helping policymakers, businesses and citizens to formulate evidence-based decisions and plans for a better future.

Official statistics can answer many questions: Is society heading in the direction promised by politicians? Is unemployment up or down? Are there more CO2 emissions compared to ten years ago? How many women go to work? How does the country's economy perform compared to other EU member states?

For more than 60 years, the statistical authorities of the European Union's member states have been working together with Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Union (EU), in the European Statistical System (ESS), to produce reliable and comparable data. European statistics present two main features that make them irreplaceable. They give comparable data for each member state and at the same time they provide aggregates for the euro area and the EU.

In Cyprus, the Authority responsible for the compilation and dissemination of most of the official statistics is the Statistical Service (CYSTAT). In the framework of the celebration of the European Statistics Day, CYSTAT has planned the following actions, which aim to promote the use of official statistics:

• 19 October 2018: Update of the digital publication “The life of women and men in Europe”.

The digital publication compares women and men in their daily lives. It also shows how similar or different the everyday life of women and men is in European countries, through easy to understand texts and infographics.

• 19 October 2018: European Statistics Competition

The Statistical Service in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Culture, the University of Cyprus and the Cyprus Statistical Society will organize this year the European Statistics Competition in Cyprus. The contest will be held amongst secondary school students during the school year 2018-2019 and the kick off day will be the 19^th of October.

• 20 October 2018: Launch of teams registration procedure in the European Statistics Competition.

(MG/II)