Enumerator Tracey Dentana with the Managing Director of Advance Technology Limited Hudson Wakio
The Annual Enterprise Survey (AES) conducted by the Solomon Islands National Statistics Office (SINSO) completed its field operation on Monday, hitting its targeted sample size of 3000 businesses.
The survey commenced in November last year in all provinces across the country except Choiseul, Temotu and Ren-bel Province.
Principal Statistician-Economics-AES Coordinator Moffat Sanau said the response has been very good but believes more awareness is important as some businesses refused to comply.
“There are pending businesses who are yet to respond to the survey,” he said.
Under the Statistics Amendment Act 2007, non-compliances or failure to provide information to SINSO through those SINSO-AES field officers is already a breach.
“It is a serious offence, which carries a fine of SBD$14,OOO or one-year imprisonment, or both.
“We are considering the accounting time frame for most of the businesses to close their financial records, so for the second survey this year, we are pulling back to begin in September or October,” he added.
The next process for the survey after collecting the data is validation and then analysis.
The information collected from the survey will go towards the publication of the Business Statistics, the Gross Domestic Product, GDP and the Statistical Business Register.
The first of its kind, the survey falls under Component 2 of the Building Capacity in Statistics and Audit, CAPSA Project, a partnership between the Solomon Islands Government and World Bank.
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SINSO statement
