Hi Colin! My name is Enrique. I am a Python developer with 8 years of experience (I will update my freelancer profile later). I would like to work on this project, after a quick look on the OECD website I have these possible solutions:
1. Use the OECD API.
PROS: The most reliable and fast solution, this will let us to easily obtain the data from any query that you have.
CONS: Is limited to 1000,000 observations. If we are using an "old" python version such as 2.7 JSON formatting sometimes turns in a nightmare, I rely on my experience to deal successfully in that.
2. Scrap the data using Selenium.
PROS: You can do as much request as you want. Human-like interaction, if implemented correctly the website will never know is an automated script that is working.
CONS: Sometimes could be slow and depends on different issues: Server slow connection, Proxy slow connection, your connection is slow.
In order to save the information into MySQL I will use the SQL library for python and since you already have the commands used on SQL on your VB code, we can recycle them and make it work just the way you already expect.
Past experience:
1. Energy Price Scrapper. This Scrapper downloaded 5000 files with energy price information by city, region, month, and year from Mexico's Government Website (CFE).
2. Gurufocus Scrapper. Scrapper made with Selenium to download company and industry information for investment analysis.
Its been a pleasure bidding on this project! Have a nice day!