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Businesses urged to respond to census
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Posted on Jul 01 2008
Local businesses were urged yesterday to help complete the 2007 economic census of the Commonwealth.
The census forms were originally mailed in December 2007, and three follow-up increases have been sent by mail. According to the Fitial administration, just over 70 percent of the businesses have returned their census forms. Historically, the CNMI has had final response rates at or above 90 percent for the economic census.
To ensure the accuracy of the economic census, it is important that reports be received from as many businesses as possible, the administration said.
“It is absolutely essential for federal policy makers to have current information about the state of the CNMI’s economy in order to make sound federal policy decisions concerning our islands,” said Gov. Benigno R. Fitial, who called on all CNMI businesses to cooperate with the U.S. Census Bureau in completing the census.
Two U.S. Census Bureau officials will be on island until Tuesday, July 8, 2008, to work with CNMI officials on plans for completing the economic census. The two officials are Lee Wentela, chief of the Economic Census Branch, and Geoffrey Hill, a survey statistician.
The Census officials are working with the CNMI Department of Commerce’s Central Statistics Division, on follow-up plans for those companies that have yet to turn it their economic census questionnaires. Those businesses can expect telephone call interviews and personal visits from the Census officials.
The economic census covers all businesses that paid employees during any period of time in 2007. The census includes all establishments that employ at least one person. The form asks about their physical location, operational status, length of operation, use of e-commerce, employment and payroll, inventories, kind of business and type of product, and class of customer.
The last CNMI economic census was done in 2002. Federal law requires that the economic census be done every five years.
The 2007 results are scheduled to be released in March 2009.
