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TIMOR-LESTE BUSINESS ACTIVITY SURVEY, 2011
Introduction
1. The National Directorate of Statistics, Timor-Leste plans to conduct the second business activity survey (BAS) for Timor-Leste in respect of the 2011 calendar year. The survey will be conducted along similar lines to the inaugural survey, which was conducted in respect of 2010. For information on the 2010 survey, please see the article “The Business Activity Survey of Timor-Leste, 2010”, available here. (Insert hyperlink to the article) | English | Tetun |
Planned Outputs from the Survey
2. The business activity survey collects data that are essential for understanding the economic circumstances of Timor-Leste as the country pursues its development agenda. The main BAS outputs will continue to be of t wo types:
- Data that shed light on the structure and economic performance of the formal business sector in Timor-Leste. Such data include business counts, employment aggregates (e.g. employment status, gender), a detailed breakdown of income and expenses items (by industry) and profit/loss items.
- Economic data items used in the compilation of the national accounts, most particularly the calculation of gross domestic product. These data include output, intermediate use, industry value added, compensation of employees, gross operating surplus and capital expenditure.
3. The data will also be presented separately by selected industries and by geography for these estimate types:
- Industry: data will be presented separately for selected industries, including Manufacturing, Construction, Retail and Wholesale Trade, Accommodation and Restaurants. The remaining industries will be presented as a combined total ‘other industries’.
- Geography: data will be presented separately for businesses operating in ‘Dili’ and a combined category for businesses operating in the ‘Districts’.
4. Since the 2011 BAS will be the second such survey, the changes between 2010 and 2011 will be an important dimension to the survey outputs.
Scope of the Survey
5. The scope of the BAS will include the formal business sector of Timor-Leste that actively traded during the 2011 calendar year.
6. The scope of the survey will include businesses whose primary income is generated from the following activities:
- private non-financial businesses *1 ;
- private financial services; and
- aid/charitable organizations where the majority (more than 50%) of revenue is received from trading activities in Timor-Leste.
7. Public trading enterprises where a majority of their income (more than 50%) is generated from the direct provision of services will also be in-scope.
8. The survey will exclude the following types of businesses:
- the petroleum-producing businesses that submit tax through the National Directorate of Petroleum Revenue;
- general government agencies (such as administration, education and health);
- public trading enterprises, where the majority of their income is received from government transfers or payments;
- non-businesses or non-trading enterprises (such as embassies and missions); and
- the informal sector of the economy, including:
- subsistence agricultural production;
- piecemeal and informal manufacturing; and
- street vendors
9. Businesses operating in the petroleum industry will not be included in the BAS, however data will be obtained for them from the National Directorate of Petroleum Revenue for purposes of national accounts compilation.
10. The informal economy is excluded from the BAS. Although this sector involves a large number of very small businesses, their collective contribution to gross domestic product, with the exception of subsistence agriculture is small. Further, there are no robust survey frames available from which to survey these micro-businesses.
11. Agricultural production in Timor-Leste is predominantly subsistence farming, and is largely out of scope of the survey. However, some commercial agricultural businesses, such as coffee cooperatives, are included in the survey.
Data Collection
12. Data will be collected during May and June 2012 from businesses selected to participate in the survey. Trained field interviewers will be used to collect the data, but businesses will have the option of filling in the form themselves and returning it to the National Directorate of Statistics.
Collection Authority
13. The survey is being conducted under the authority of Statistics Law (decree-Law No. 17/2003 of 01 October 2003). The law provides for compulsory provision of data by selected businesses, but the National Directorate of Statistics seeks the willing cooperation of businesses in the provision of the data.
14. The Statistics Law also provides that any information provided to the National Directorate of Statistics be used for statistical purposes only and that the aggregate statistics compiled from the survey be presented in such a way that the information in respect of any individual business cannot be discerned.
Publication of Results
15. It is expected that the results of the 2011 business activity survey will be published in mid-September 2012.
National Directorate of Statistics
January 2012
* Private non-financial businesses include ‘Manufacturing’, ‘Construction’, ‘Retail and Wholesale Trade’, ‘Accommodation and Restaurants’, ‘Transport’ and other service providers.
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