China's first national economic census entered its registration
phase on New Year's Day after months of preparation, according to
the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Uniformed census officials instructed corporate staff to fill
out census forms in at least two big Beijing-based companies
Saturday.
This census, the largest such survey conducted since the
founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, is designed to
draw an economic panorama of China's fast-expanding secondary and
tertiary industries and complete a database covering all economic
sectors. This will enable the central government to map plans for
economic and social growth.
The census will survey?five million corporate people,
involve nearly 10 million statisticians and volunteers and cost
billions of yuan.
Lin Xianyu, NBS' deputy director, said during census
registration Saturday that "comprehensive and accurate data
collection is vital for the success of the census."
According to a circular jointly released by the Office of the
Leading Group of the First National Economic Census under the State
Council, the Ministry of Supervision and the NBS, refusal to
register accurate data, the leaking of census data by census
officials and institutions and tampering with data would all be
dealt with seriously.
Data gathered during the census can not be used as evidence for
legal prosecution, an NBS official said.
The survey will cover such economic sectors as building
construction and transportation sector and scientific research. It
will collect information on staff size, financial conditions and
productivity management.
When the registration is concluded at the end of March of this
year, the census will enter a data processing phase, and the final
outcome will be released in September of 2005, according to the
NBS.
From now on, China will conduct an economic census every five
years.
China launched state-level trial census programs in three
provinces of Jilin,
Zhejiang
and Sichuan
and the city of Beijing in 2004.
(Xinhua News Agency January 2, 2005)