The Ministry of Development Planning, under the Department of Statistics, will commence the economic activity listing from the census next week to determine the country;s economy.This was stated by the Senior Field Officer Mr. Tlhalefo Kaphe during an interview with the Agency on Tuesday who said the activity is conducted every ten years adding that the survey serves as the statistical benchmark for current economic activity as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

According to Mr. Kaphe, the census is scheduled to start on September 09 to November 07,2024.  He continued to state they will be collecting data from individual businessestablishments on physical location as well as the type of business they provide in all five constituencies. Businesses to be listed include shops, supermarkets, financial institutions, bakery shops, churches, and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) amongst others.He added that the survey will give a detailed baseline on the kind of businesses found in the district.

He said that would make it easy to give out information on the types of businesses that exist to those who are eager to start new businesses in the district. He said they will only be giving out aggregated information only adding that they will not be checking if businesses are licensed or not but will collect data on all the businesses they will find. Concerning the churches, he said they are aware that some have tuck shops and books centers so they will be collecting that information. Mr. Kaphe said there will also be phase two which will be conducted early next year, and in that, they will be sampling shops randomly for detailed information as they will be looking into things like record keeping of books and the challenges they are faced with daily. The last economic survey was held in 2014.