Today the new Director General of Statistics Estonia assumes office

While starting to direct Statistics Estonia, Mr Oopkaup mentions as the main challenge “Official, reliable statistics should move closer to the population and users and the administrative load of entrepreneurs should be reduced. It seems simple as an action directive, but significantly more difficult to put into practice.”

A new five-year strategy period will start for the European Statistical System in 2013, which focuses on supporting the European policies and monitoring the provision of qualitative information, implementing more efficient methods while producing statistics and strengthening the partnership within the ESS in order to further enhance its productivity and its leading role in official statistics worldwide. Mr Oopkaup mentioned that “Statistics Estonia faces an exciting and responsible period to implement the technological innovations, which were used during the Population Census, also in other surveys and to increase the share of registry-based statistics. The forthcoming strategy period is characterised by fulfilling the role of the European Union presidency in the field of statistics in the first half-year of 2018.”

Mr Andres Oopkaup worked in 1994–2011 in the Ministry of Agriculture, last as the Deputy Secretary General for Agricultural and Trade Policies.

Mr Oopkaup graduated from the Estonian Agricultural Academy in 1991 in the speciality of mechanisation, supplemented his knowledge in the Estonian Business School (EBS), in Sorbonne University in France, in the University of San Francisco in the USA and in Dalhousie University in Canada.