2023 IBES will focus on areas of growth - GSS

The Ghana Statistical Services (GSS) has said the 2023 Integrated Business Establishment Survey (IBES) will provide data to aid the growth of businesses.

Government Statistician Professor Samuel Kobina Annim noted that unlike previous surveys, the 2023 exercise has an expanded scope that will inform appropriate policy initiatives and provide quality data to help businesses achieve growth.

“What we will do with the data that we are going to collect is to rebase our gross domestic product (GDP) and production index; and traditionally, we have done that. But now we are going beyond that to ensure that businesses can also benefit from the data that we collect.

“One of the areas that businesses are going to get information on is that for the first time, the data we collect will give us what we call the business growth polls which essentially will tell us the viability of the different businesses we have in Ghana, across different geographical areas.

“Also, when the pandemic affected businesses, the government wanted to help but we did not have readily available data to give us a sense of the firmographics of businesses in the country; so once this live data is gathered, it will also help in such cases,” he said.

He said this during the inauguration of the National Steering Committee of the 2023 Ghana Integrated Business Establishment Survey (IBES) in Accra.

The National Steering Committee (NSC), he explained, will provide strategic guidance and general oversight over IBES and monitor activities to ensure successful implementation. It will also assist in the mobilisation of additional resources for the survey as needed.

The 15-member committee comprises institutional representatives from the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Ghana Statistical Services, Ghana Revenue Authority, National Identification Authority, National Development Planning Commission, Ghana Enterprise Agency, Association of Ghana Industries, Ghana Union of Traders Association, United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, and World Bank.

“The IBES seeks to build an updated online business register, update the categorisation of businesses, profile the distribution of businesses by their firmographics, assess the worth of businesses, and determine changes in the structure of businesses over time.

“Phase I of the 2023 Ghana Integrated Business Establishment Survey (IBES I) is an economic census that will enumerate all businesses across all sectors of the economy,” a GSS document on the survey stated.

The government statistician, ahead of the inauguration, presented information that included “the expanded scope to include businesses not in structures, collection of geospatial data, automation of data collection processes, and the addition of new modules on digital finance and environmental responsiveness.

“The presentation also highlighted 15 key areas on the policy relevance of business data for Ghana’s development broadly grouped under the following categories: data on the characteristics of Ghanaian businesses, business-centred support, understanding business performance and growth, business data analytics and benchmarks for economic indicators.”

Deputy Minister of Finance Abena Osei Asare, who inaugurated the committee, urged its members to take the exercise seriously and ensure reliable and high-quality field data as the results would aid in decision-making and planning.

She pledged the ministry’s readiness to assist the committee in developing quality data for the country’s development planning.