BPS to conduct detailed census on informal sector

JAKARTA (JP): The Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) will conduct a detailed census on the Indonesian informal sector in October as a follow-up to its nationwide economic census last December, BPS chairman Sugito said.

Speaking to reporters after opening an integrated training course of the state statistics agency in Cisarua, 50 km south of here, Monday night, Sugito pointed out that the follow-up census will take about two months.

"The informal sector plays an important role in our economy. In order to get the real picture of that sector, we'll survey 1.1 million nonformal businesses all over Indonesia," he noted.

He said that there are very many small entities in the informal sector and his office will choose 1.1 million of them.

"From our experience in taking a census, what's important is that we need to improve the supervision mechanism of such an economic survey," he said, adding that his agency will involve 45,000 field officers for the census.

The statistics agency conducted its second national economic census last December and in January this year. The first economic census was held in 1986 by the agency.

Sugito mentioned that during last year's census, his office still found a number of shortcomings, such as unchecked questionnaires and dubious data.

"We found that the percentage of deviations last year was between 0.10 and 0.14 percent in several provinces. That number is meaningless, but it's disturbing," he said.

He noted, however, that such shortcomings should not become the subject of concern because all data from respondents are edited first before being fed into a computer.

Commenting on the World Bank's proposal last week that Indonesia raise fuel prices on the domestic market, Sugito said that any increase in fuel prices will certainly have an inflationary impact on the economy because it would increase the prices of several goods.

The World Bank, in its latest report on Indonesia issued last week, urges the Indonesian government to raise fuel prices, electricity tariffs, forestry fees and property assessments for the collection of property tax, reduce public spending on power generation and telecommunications, develop better sources of non- tax revenues and speed up the prepayment of foreign debts.

The bank said that such steps are necessary to raise the state budget surplus to as much as 2 percent of the Gross Domestic Product.

Sugito, who admitted that he had not yet read the World Bank report, said that the government should first consider the impact of that proposal carefully before deciding to carry out the bank's proposal.

He noted that the government has immediate no plan to increase fuel prices nor electricity tariffs. "I don't think the government will raise the prices, at least, until later this year," he said. (13)