Dominic Leung

Census and Statistics Department Hong Kong, China

Introduction

1.The Central Register of Establishments (CRE) is a computerized register of establishments maintained by the Census and Statistics Department (C&SD) of Hong Kong, China.  The CRE was firstly developed in 1980 and re-designed in 1988.

Overview of the CRE

2.The CRE is a database containing records of business establishments in Hong Kong.  Currently, it has about 550 000 establishment records of which 350 000 are active establishments having employment.

3.The data fields of the CRE cover a wide range of information pertaining to individual establishments including establishment name, physical address, mailing address, type of business activity, employment size, type of ownership, operating status, date of commencement, date of business registration and contact information such as name of contact person, telephone number and fax number.

Definition of an establishment

4.An establishment in the CRE is an economic unit (i.e. a unit engaged in the production of goods or services) which engages, under a single ownership or control (i.e. under a single establishment name), in one or predominantly one kind of economic activity at a single physical location.

Applications

5.The CRE mainly serves as a basic sampling frame for establishment-type surveys conducted by the C&SD.  Samples of specific groups of establishments can be selected as required.

6.According to the provisions of the Census and Statistics Ordinance (CAP.316), disclosable information of four items of particulars viz. name, address, type of business and employment size of individual establishments kept in the CRE can be supplied to the general public and other government departments.

7.The general public can make use of the disclosable particulars kept in the CRE in their survey, publicity, business promotion, customer classification and research work.  These particulars are available to the general public upon request on a charge basis.  The information may be provided in the form of a 20% random sample listing of the CRE, or be extracted from the CRE through a matching process for specified establishments using name and address as the matching keys.

Updating Sources and Processes

8.The updating sources of the CRE can be broadly classified into two categories, i.e. administrative records and survey data.

Administrative Records

9.The Business Registration Office (BRO) of the Inland Revenue Department is a primary updating source of the CRE which provides information on business registrations to the C&SD on a regular basis.

10.The information on new business registrations (with basic information on name, address and business registration number) is received from the BRO on a regular basis.  Upon receipt of these new business records, questionnaires are sent to these new establishments to collect data on their particulars, including type of business, employment size, telephone number, contact person, etc.  Late and non-response cases are followed up by field visits.  After completion of data collection, new establishments which are confirmed active (in terms of having employment) are then inserted into the CRE.

11.Moreover, the BRO supplies amendment and deletion records of business registrations to C&SD on a regular basis.  The information is used to update the basic particulars (e.g. name and address amendment) and the operating status (e.g. closure cases) of the existing establishments in the CRE.

12.Besides, supplementary information is obtained regularly from other government administrative records such as lists of schools from the Education Department, taxi licenses from the Transport Department, and welfare institutions from the Social Welfare Department for updating the CRE.

Survey Data

13.Apart from using the CRE as a sampling frame, the establishment surveys conducted by the C&SD also feed back information to update the existing establishment records, such as the data fields of type of business, employment size and operating status.

14.Among these surveys, the Quarterly Survey of Employment and Vacancies (SEV), which has a large sample of 55 000 establishments, is the major vehicle for updating CRE.  The survey provides updating information regarding the ¡®industry¡¯ which the establishment is engaged in.  Starting from the first quarter of 2003, the sampling scheme of SEV has been re-designed to the effect that the updating cycle for all active establishments in the CRE is shortened from three years to two years.

Coverage

15.The CRE basically covers most establishments engaged in the major economic activities classified under the Hong Kong Standard Industrial Classification (HSIC).  They include ordinary business establishments, semi-government bodies and non-profit making organisations.

17.Owing to operational constraints and some practical considerations, some types of establishments are not included in the CRE.  They are listed below :

Recent Developments

18.With the wide-spread establishment of information technology and telecommunications companies in Hong Kong in recent years, the HSIC has been enhanced to provide a more refined and up-to-date classification framework.  The enhanced classification, namely HSIC Version 1.1, was adopted by the CRE in 2002.

19.The HSIC is adapted from the United Nations International Standard Industrial Classification for All Economic Activities (ISIC).  On the one hand, it reflects and satisfies the local data needs specific to the economic structure of the local economy.  On the other hand, it maintains compatibility with international standards in broad terms.  Continuous efforts will be made to further enhance and adapt the HSIC in the light of the imminent ISIC Revision 4.

20.On-line read-only service has been provided to users within the C&SD via local area network.  Users located in separate and remote offices can access the information in the CRE conveniently and efficiently.  Through internal network, these sections can also download the CRE data in a secure and timely manner.

21.To facilitate compilation of statistics on small and medium size enterprises (SME), the parent-branch relationship of establishments in the CRE has been made use of in the compilation of enhanced SME statistics.  With information on such relationship, establishments belonging to large enterprises, though each of them being small and medium size on its own, can be excluded from the counting of small and medium enterprises.

Conclusion

22.The C&SD will continue to maintain and enhance the CRE with a view to providing more comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date information on establishments.  Also, it will explore the ways to broaden the usage of the CRE in the public and private sectors.  Following the recommendations made in a recent information systems strategic study, plan is in hand to enhance its system performance and versatility using the latest information and communication technology.