NSCB - Press Release - NSCB Grants Clearance to the 2008 Annual Survey of Philippine Business and Industry (ASPBI)

NSCB Grants Clearance to the 2008 Annual Survey of Philippine Business
and Industry (ASPBI)
(Posted 02 February 2009)

The Statistical Survey Review and Clearance System of the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) has granted clearance to the Annual Survey of Philippine Business and Industry (ASPBI). The ASPBI is a regular survey of the National Statistics Office (NSO) designated to be conducted every year except during the years when the Census of Philippine Business and Industry (CPBI) is to be undertaken. The last survey round was the 2005 ASPBI conducted in 2006.

The 2007 ASPBI scheduled in 2008 was not conducted because of lack of funds. The 2008 ASPBI will provide data on the structure and level of economic activity in the country that will serve as the basis for the government and private sectors to formulate policies and evolve economic plans. Specifically, the results are also useful in: the construction of national and regional accounts of the Philippine economy; formulating and monitoring plans/policies in the attainment of national and regional economic goals; determining and comparing regional economic structures and performances; and in market research and feasibility studies. The major data items in the questionnaire are general information about the establishment, employment, compensation, revenue, subsidies, cost, capital expenditures, sale of fixed asset, capital expenditure for intangible assets, book value of fixed asset, capacity utilization, and inventories. Some improvements on the survey have been instituted based on the recommendations of the Task Force on the Integrated System of Establishment Enquiries, and on the bilateral meetings between the NSO and NSCB to make the survey results more useful and reliable. These include the addition of data items on capital expenditures for intangible assets, more data items in mining and quarrying, and the use of supplemental administrative data from existing data sources such as the Commission on Audit (COA) for information on government owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs).

For the 2008 ASPBI, the questionnaires will be distributed to around 30,000 establishments in April 2009. The establishments were selected using a stratified systematic sampling with industry and employment size as stratification variables. All the industries based on the 1994 Philippine Standard Industrial Classification (PSIC) are covered in the survey.

A total budget of Php50.5 million or Php 1,683 per respondent is allocated for the 2008 ASPBI to cover personal services, traveling expenses, supplies, printing expenses, communication, freight, training and others. Information dissemination of the survey results at the national level will start in November 2010, one year and ten months after the reference year. At the regional level this will be from December 2010 to February 2011. The printed publication will be available in March 2011.

The Statistical Survey Review and Clearance System is a mechanism instituted through Memorandum Circular Nos. 4-88 and 4-95 to: (1) ensure sound design for data collection, (2) minimize the burden placed upon respondents, (3) effect economy in statistical data collection, (4) achieve better coordination of government statistical activities, and (5) inform the private sector and the public in general that a government survey operation has passed clearance and enjoin their cooperation in the conduct of the survey.

ROMULO A. VIROLA
Secretary General