National economic census begins on March 1

This is one of the censuses deployed every 5 years, at the largest scale and complexity of the statistics industry.

The 2021 economic census will take place nationwide, divided into two phases. The first phase, from March 1 to May 30, will collect information on production and business establishments of the business sector and administrative, non-business, branches and representative offices of foreign enterprises; Foreign non-governmental organizations licensed to operate in Vietnam; and association establishments. The second phase, to be implemented from May 15 to the end of July 30 this year, will collect information on individual non-agricultural, forestry and fishery production and business establishments; religious and belief establishments.

A new aspect of this economic census is the thorough application of information technology in all stages of the census to save time for enterprises when making declarations on the web platform, and the information of enterprises will be kept confidential.

The national census is to evaluate the growth in quantity, size, and labour of economic establishments, thereby, using it as a basis to set out socio-economic development strategies in the coming time, meeting the management requirements of the Party, State, ministries, industries, and localities.

A new point of this economic census is the thorough application of information technology in all stages of the census to save time for enterprises in making declarations on the web platform, with the information of enterprises to be kept confidential.

Enterprises and administrative, non-business, and association establishments will declare directly at http:// thongkedoanhnghiep.gso.gov.vn from March 1 to April 30, 2021. As for individual and religious units, census takers will directly interview them by computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) on smart electronic devices.

In the event of force majeure, if an enterprise does not have the means to fill in information online, the investigator will guide the enterprise to fill out the paper form and send the ballot signed or digitally signed to confirm to the investigator.

According to the most recent results of the 2017 national economic census, administrative and non-business units tend to increase slowly while the economic sector, especially enterprises, tends to increase higher.

However, the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 has caused significant obstacles for the socio-economic development of the country, directly affecting the health of each enterprise and person.

Therefore, the implementation of the 2021 national economic census is of particular importance in order to collect sufficient information to clearly see the comprehensive economic picture of the country as well as the development of each economic unit and each geographic area, locality and region.

The results obtained from the census are an important basis for the Government, ministries, branches and localities to formulate specific and effective policies and solutions to achieve economic development goals and Socio-economic development plan (2021-2025 period). At the same time is one of the important bases for the GSO to compile indicators of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and official statistical indicators of the statistical majors.

It is expected that the preliminary results of the National economic census will be announced in December 2021 and the official results will be announced in January 2022.

(Source: NDO)