On April 17, 2018, the European Commission delivered to Serbia the Progress Report for 2018 (Serbia-report 2018). The report contains positive assessments of Chapter 18 - Statistics, as well as proposals of the activities to be undertaken in the following year, such as:

- Adoption of the new Law on Official Statistics, which would increase the independence of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia and
- Further improvement of macroeconomic statistics harmonized with the European System of Accounts - ESA 2010.

Announcement of opening the Negotiating Chapter 18 - Statistics during the year can be also observed as the support to the positive assessment and readiness of statistics to accept and implement the EU acquis.

Referring to the new Law on Official Statistics, it should be noted that the law has been prepared and is in its final stage.

Regarding the production of macroeconomic statistics, the Office has achieved extremely good results in the previous years, which was presented by Eurostat at the last Strategic Meeting of the Directors General of the Western Balkans and Turkey (presentation NA2018 ESA 2010 implementation and data requirements contains the analysis of the status of all countries in the region) held in Luxembourg on April 11, 2018. It is clear from the presentation that Serbia is observed as the leading country in the region.

When it comes to the methodology, production and dissemination of statistical information, the common rules of the European Union are predicted. The EU rules require Member States to produce statistical data on the basis of professional independence, impartiality, reliability, transparency and confidentiality. The significant success of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia is certainly the Peer Review mission Report, organized by Eurostat in December 2017, which clearly emphasized the high degree of harmonization of the Serbian statistical system with the European (details can be found on ESS_PR_CompReport_Serbia_vF1).