1. Introduction
Statistical business registers (SBRs) are the essential element of the statistical infrastructure to support the collection of economic data and the production of economic statistics. They provide a coherent set of units and classifications to collect and compile data across all domains, and a consistent set of rules to maintain this set of units over time. SBRs are considered as the backbone for producing economic statistics that meet the increasing demand for better integrated, coherent and comparable statistics across countries and statistical domains.
The United Nations Statistical Commission at its fifty-third session in 2022 endorsed the launching of a regular global assessment on the status of implementation of SBRs in countries and encouraged close coordination with the Wiesbaden Group on Business Registers and other relevant groups (decision 53/119 E/2022/24-E/CN.3/2022/41). The global assessment on statistical business registers was developed by the Task Team on Statistical Business Registers under the United Nations Committee of Experts on Business and Trade Statistics in close collaboration with the Wiesbaden Group. The global assessment is based on: 1) the Country Progress Report of the Wiesbaden Group, which has been in use for many years before, and 2) the self-assessment questionnaire of the Manual on the Maturity Model for SBRs.