1. Presentation to the Committee for Establishment of a Business Register
Islamabad October 2007
Presentation to the Committee for Establishment of a Business Register
Bernd Struck, GTZ

2. Situation Analysis (1) Problems in collection of data
illiteracy
cultural constraints
low accounting standards
low propensity to deliver information
Deregulation since 80s (especially in industrial location policy) led to faulty and outdated administrative frames
no follow up of units dying out
no update of start-ups
In economic statistics censuses but no regular surveys with monthly, quarterly or annual periodicity
Bernd Struck, GTZ

3. Situation analysis (2) Overlapping directories,
Formal economy of “listed” or “registered” or “surveyed” enterprises / establishments
Overlapping directories,
no uniform classification,
no overall identification key
Associations
Corporations
Chambers
Tax authority
Informal or “non-observed” economy
of “unlisted” or “unregistered” units
Bernd Struck, GTZ

4. Outcome of present situation for statistics
Overlapping, partly outdated directories with different classifications (if any, at all) have to be adjusted and reconciled.
This is cumbersome and costly.
It is also time-consuming and hampering timely provision of results.
Despite all efforts of reconciliation gaps are remaining. The full and redundancy-free coverage of a survey cannot be ensured.
There are no a-priori data like employment or sales figures to enable stratified sampling.
Bernd Struck, GTZ

5. Business register in PK is planned. It should …
be accessible to official statistics,
be up-to-date,
cover all relevant private and public economic activity,
classify the economic activities and the other main quality features (legal status, form of organisation etc.) and
comprise some main economic quantities like number of employees or capacity or annual sales (for direct analysis and for stratified sampling).
Bernd Struck, GTZ

6. A business register in PK would …
support updates of the frames of surveys,
timely implement start-ups,
enable stratified sampling and thus improve quality of results and coincidentally reduce response burden,
support technical preparation and conduction of surveys
(printing questionnaires, checking response, sending reminders),
classify units (enterprises and establishments) in a uniform way enabling aggregation of the results of different surveys
improve coverage and timeliness of the surveys,
provide useful information even without any survey.
Bernd Struck, GTZ

7. Business register: impact on quality
Accuracy
Timeliness
Periodicity
Quality of statistics
Scope of items
Coverage
depth of breakdown (regions, subjects)
Bernd Struck, GTZ

8. BR for Pk: decisions to be taken
Which authority should install and run it?
Centralized or decentralized model?
Sources, scope, thresholds, variables?
Classification and types of units?
Online-basis or batch?
Which identification key?
Access to non-confidential variables?
Do we need a special law?
Bernd Struck, GTZ

9. Three Sub-Committees Technical and Statistical Aspects Legal Aspects
Workflow and Data Processing
Bernd Struck, GTZ

10. Centralized or decentralized?
Which authority?
The Statistics Division should be made responsible to promote, install and run the BR.
Centralized or decentralized?
The BR should be run in a centralized model.
Bernd Struck, GTZ

11. Recommended sources Authority of supervision of corporation
Tax authority
Energy providers
Directorates of Provincial Labour & Industries Departments
Other organizations may be added later as per requirement.
Bernd Struck, GTZ

12. Scope of the register
Initially the content of the register should be limited to manufacturing, based on data of supervision of corporation to begin with.
Data from other sources may be added subsequently with the strengthening of Business Register.
The scope should be extended to other parts of the economy later on.
Bernd Struck, GTZ

13. Threshold of units to be registered
Threshold must be simple, useful, convenient, readily available and flexible to use.
Different thresholds may be used for different sectors.
For manufacturing, multiple thresholds are recommended:
10 and above workers
Rs 5 Million sales/turnover
40 KW and above electricity consumption
Bernd Struck, GTZ

14. What variables should be collected?
Name
Address
Kind of activity
Legal Status
Type of ownership
Product range
Employment size
Electricity Consumption
relating to establishments as well as enterprises:
Additional items like “sales” for manufacturing industries sector and “suitable balance sheet items” for banking and insurance sector should also be added as per requirement.
Bernd Struck, GTZ

15. Classification and units
Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC Rev 3.1) should be used. In Pakistan this is so-called PSIC 2007
Both establishments and enterprises should be covered.
Bernd Struck, GTZ

16. Online-basis or batch?
Updating process would be carried out on real time basis through LAN system.
Batch processing is more suitable for this type of applications.
The source agencies will be required to supply soft copies of data files on annual basis.
An online-access to the sources (read-only) could be useful.
This could be enriched by allowing FBS to update selected statistic-specific data like the industrial classification (PSIC)
Bernd Struck, GTZ

17. Sources and keys: example (1)
Sources
CBR
SECP
WAPDA
other
“foreign “ keys:
Key 1
Key 2
Key 3
Key 4
Data sets containing Key FBS along with Key 1 ,Key 2, Key 3, Key 4
Business Register
Data sets containing Key 1, Key FBS, variables of source 1
CBR
SECP
WAPDA
other
Sub-register files containing relevant variables of source
Bernd Struck, GTZ

18. Sources and keys: example (2)
“Lahore Cement Corp.” may have SECP-key 111, CBR-key 222 and WAPDA-key 333. In the Business Register it gets key 789.
In the main register there is a data set under “789” containing the non-confidential variables (address etc) and the keys for SECP, CBR and WAPDA.
In the Sub-register of SECP the variables provided by SECP are stored under key 111.
In Sub-register of CBR the CBR-variables come under 222.
In Sub-register of WAPDA these variables come under 333.
Bernd Struck, GTZ

19. Access to non-confidential variables
Access should be free and available on Website.
Establishments and enterprises may request FBS for clarification or updating of information in the BR.
Website will be updated after every three months.
Bernd Struck, GTZ

20. An explicit legal basis is required
The sources should have a justification to deliver their data.
The sources should be mandated by law to provide their data.
Official Statistics shall have the power of law to get the information needed for clarification of individual cases.
Bernd Struck, GTZ

21. BR in PK as a Public-Private Partnership
Private sector
Delivers data to the source benefits from information in BR
Private Sector
Business Register
Sources
FBS
Gets data for free Manages, classifies, matches, updates information
Public sector
Bernd Struck, GTZ