We must know what we have to plan for the future - is the conclusion from today's meeting of the mayors with the President of the Republic of North Macedonia, Stevo Pendarovski, the President of the Assembly, Talat Xhaferi, the Prime Minister, Zoran Zaev, the Minister of Local Self-Government, Goran Milevski, the Minister of Justice, Bojan Maricic, the Mayor of Skopje and President of ZELS, Petre Shilegov, and the Director of the State Statistical Office, Apostol Simovski and his Deputy, Ilmi Selami.
"Conducting a credible census is a test of our maturity as a country", President Pendarovski said in his address at the meeting. He stressed that this census will be conducted in unusual conditions, but that he is completely convinced and has confidence in the credibility, professionalism and expertise of the State Statistical Office for conducting this most important statistical operation.
In his address, the President of the Assembly stressed that the census is not and must not be a political operation and that it is high time we became one of the countries that we aspire to join, and we will achieve that only with maximum support for the successful execution of this serious statistical operation.
In his address, the Prime Minister especially referred to the importance of the census in the process of starting negotiations with the EU and that the census is our obligation as a candidate country for EU membership, because the Statistics chapter is one of the chapters of the first cluster in the negotiations.
The Minister of Local Self-Government and the President of ZELS emphasised the great importance of the census data for the development of local self-government and expressed their maximum support and commitment to this process that affects us all, and on whose success depends the future and development of all municipalities and the country as a whole.
"My call is for unification - it is necessary for political parties to support and stimulate the census, because only united in the idea of ??a modern and advanced country can we succeed", said the Minister of Justice, addressing the mayors.
The Director of the State Statistical Office emphasised and welcomed the huge support that the Office receives from all institutions in the country and stressed the role of the municipalities in the entire process of preparation and implementation of the census. In his speech, he reiterated the need and usefulness of the census data. With the census, we primarily obtain data on the population, its sex and age structure, territorial distribution, educational structure and occupation, migration, data on households and their structure according to the number of members, dwellings and living conditions. With the data obtained by the census, the municipalities will be able to plan their development and make investment decisions, plan the services they provide to the citizens, plan and appropriately transfer the budget funds at their disposal, and at the same time they will have a basis for requesting more resources, both from budget and EU funds. In addition to the municipalities, the census data will be of great importance to both the business community and the non-governmental sector. The Director of the State Statistical Office emphasised the obligations of the municipalities arising from the Census Law, as well as the role they will play in the whole process. He appealed for open and comprehensive cooperation, positive approach and maximum commitment of all participants in this largest and most significant statistical operation, and the State Statistical Office, with all its professional capacity, will be invested in the successful execution of the Census of Population, Households and Dwellings in North Macedonia, 2021.
