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Annual Seminars of INSEE's Business Statistics Directorate - from 1995 to 2004

Business statistics has gradually developed from the 1950s and the 1960s. The postwar years saw the launch of "industry surveys"(enquêtes de branche), whose chief purpose was to measure industrial production. The first annual enterprise surveys were launched in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

But economic reality does not stop evolving. The structure of the enterprises becomes more complex as well as the kind of links that unite them. The means of observation setted up for goods proved to be difficult to adapt to services, even thoug the importance of the service sector is soaring. At the same time, European statistical integration - more and more pressing - ends in the adoption of rules harmonizing concepts and methods, results of a delicate compromise between the various points of view of the different countries.

Facing these fundamental tendencies, business statisticians have to adapt. The yearly seminars of the INSEE Directorate for Enterprise Statistics are parts of this approach. Since 1995, they are opportunities to invite firm managers, academics and foreign statisticians to express their ideas on an actual topic. If need be, are also invited lawyers, members of the European Commission, or representatives of OECD.