Establishment Census 2007

Following a Prime Minister's Decision a General survey was carried out on national scope on the 1st July, 2002. This is the second following the first in 1995 General survey. The Survey targets data on the number of establishments in all 61 provinces and cities of the country, their number of used labors and operation performance.

In the General Survey, the surveyed unit is reffered to as the "establishment" which is defined as any business, public administrative, association, politiccal... establishment that has stable address and operates continuously for at least 3 months a year.

The survey was conducted nation-wide covering all of the establishments that are operating within Vietnam's territory regardless of type of organisation or industry they may belong to (except agricultural co-operatives and agricultural, forest and aquatic family businesses that were surveyed in 2001). In the Group of Business establishments the objects of the survey are all of the self-accounting enterprises including collective and foreign invested ones, their branchs, affiliates, representative offices. The individual businesses both registered or non-registered are also included only if they are operative still in a definite industry.

As for Group of Public Administrative, Partial, Association... establishments the surveyed objects include Governmental agencies, political (partial) organisations, socio-political organisations (unions), socio-professional associations, socio-religious organisations, public service organisations (educational, healthcare, cultural, social, sport, science research, technology, environmental...) and their affiliates.

The General Survey scope and objects described above had explained for it's diversity but nevertheless the unity of the survey had been kept in the definition of "Unit" and "Business activity". The distinguished feature of the "establishment"-surveyed object is that the establishment is identifined by it's address not depending on it's size or whether it is a self-accounting or dependent. This means that an establishment could be a large independent enterprise with permanent address or a small dependent shop with separate operating area. It could be a university or the university's faculty but located in another place... "Business activity" is understood according to the classification of national economic sector activities (issued under Decree Number 75/CP of the Government) that includes production and trading sector (from Activity A to Activity I, Activity L, Activity T) and administrative, public service sector (Activities K, M, N, O, P Q). With this unique understanding the General Survey collected data will reflect the situation and results of economic activities in each regional territory. The classification of economic establishments according to their type of organisation, economic sector, labor usage size, labor sex, level of IT application, performance in each province, city, district, commune, precinct provides useful information for sector development policy makers, infrastructure development planners, economic analysts and social labor issue officers. The General Survey also provides a sery of standard forms that can be used for other subsequent anual surveys.

The General Survey of economic, administrative, public service establisments will reflect comprehensively and synchronously operation results of economic establishments of various sectors (except agricultural co-operatives and in agricultural, forestal and aquatic family businesses, the survey of which was conducted in 2001). The combination of the survey and general survey of rural agriculture (that normaly takes place a year ahead) will give a comprehensive picture of the economy.