The Ministry of Planning and Investment has established a steering committee for the conduct of the government’s 2017 economic census.

The steering committee has 13 members. Mr. Nguyen Chi Dung, Minister of Planning and Investment, heads the committee, with other members being representatives of the General Statistics Office, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Health, the State Treasury, and the General Department of Taxation.

The targets of the census include administrative agencies, Communist Party organizations, public service units, mass organizations, representatives of foreign enterprises, religious institutions, and non-government organizations in Vietnam, and exclude agriculture, salt, and seafood, on which information was collected in the 2016 rural census.

There are six information categories: general information on the targets in the economic census, workers and incomes, manufacturing and business results, information technology application, enterprises’ ability to access capital, and specific information on enterprises.

The results of the census will reveal socioeconomic development and other trends and determine future plans adopted in the country.

The census will be conducted from March to December 2017. It has two stages. Running from March 3 to May 30, the first stage will collect information on manufacturing plants, representative offices, and subsidiaries of foreign enterprises, administrative agencies of the Communist Party, mass organizations, and public service units, non-government organizations in Vietnam, and subsidiaries of international organizations.

The second stage will run from July 1 to July 30. Information collection will focus on religious institutions and non-manufacturing units, excluding agriculture, forestry and fisheries.

Abridged results will be published in December 2017 and full results in the third quarter of 2018.

A census must be conducted regularly to keep the government abreast of national development and adopt suitable strategies. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has often emphasized that stable development is key, with the country being unwilling to attract investment at any cost and it will not exchange short-term development for the environment.

According to the GSO, in 2015, the size of Vietnam’s economy reached VND4,129 trillion ($183.7 billion). GDP per capita was $2,109, or $57 higher than in 2014. GDP growth in the first half of this year was estimated at 5.52 per cent year-on-year, increasing 5.48 per cent and 5.55 per cent in the first and second quarters, respectively.

With growth of 7.12 per cent, the industry and construction sector contributed 2.41 percentage points to GDP growth. The service sector increased 6.35 per cent, contributing 2.38 percentage points. The agriculture, forestry and fisheries sector fell 0.18 per cent, however, reducing its contribution to overall growth by 0.03 percentage points.

In July the GSO conducted a census on rural areas, agriculture, and seafood. It was the fifth census it had conducted, following on from those in 1996, 2001, 2006 and 2011. Initial results will be released in December and the full results and accompanying assessment in August next year.

The scale of the census was huge because it was implemented on a national scale to study 17 million units in agriculture, forestry and fisheries, and required 180,000 staff.

VN Economic Times