The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) yesterday launched the 2024 Ghana Integrated Business Survey (IBES) phase I, an exercise implemented in partnership with the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), the World Bank and stakeholders in the public and private sectors.
This exercise is to produce an updated Statistical Business Register and generate important data for national development.
Phase I of the IBES, which commences on January 15, is an economic census which seeks to provide a comprehensive enumeration of all business units in the country irrespective of their characteristics. It will also be followed by phase II, in June, which will involve a sample survey of selected businesses to obtain detailed data on their activities.
The Government Statistician, Prof. Samuel Kobina Annim, in his remark, said “one of the uniqueness of the 2024 IBES is that opportunity we are going to get as a country to reconcile some statistics. The 2024 IBES is introducing some dimensions that reflect contemporary engagement globally.”
“So in the questionnaires, we have two new models that we didn’t have in the previous IBES, specifically now we are collecting data based on environment, and digital finance. If we really want to understand how our business will grow as a country, the only way you can do that is deep reflection on technology,” he noted.
He thus indicated that the IBES will provide updated statistics on the activities, locations, ownership, ages, and sizes of businesses to inform policy and monitoring of business growth and national development programmes.
The IBES, he said, will in addition provide an update on the current structure of Ghana’s economy to facilitate the revision of key macroeconomic indicators, including Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Producer Price Index (PPI), and the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) as well as employment status to bridge the gap between the labour needs of firms and available skills.
He also disclosed that IBES I will provide updated statistics on the characteristics of the informal sector to guide the development of policies aimed at formalising the economy and improving the welfare of workers in the various sectors.
Source: Nafisatu Abdul Razak