The 2018 CPBI is one of the designated statistical activities undertaken by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) which aims to collect and generate information on the performance, levels, structure and trends of economic activities of the formal sector in the entire country for reference year 2018. The 2018 CPBI is the 16th in the series of economic censuses conducted in the Philippines. The last economic census was the 2012 CPBI conducted in 2013.
The conduct of CPBI is based on RA 10625 known as the Philippine Statistical Act of 2013, which was approved on 12 September 2013. Specifically, Section 6 of this Act mandates the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to prepare and conduct periodic censuses on population, housing, agriculture, fisheries, business, industry, and other sectors of the economy. Furthermore, EO No. 352 (Designation of Statistical Activities that will Generate Critical Data for Decision‐making of the Government and the Private Sector) defines the CPBI as a designated statistical activity and the results generated from this census are designated statistics.
Data collected from the CPBI will constitute bases upon which the government and the private sector can formulate policies and economic development plans. The census results will be used in:
The 2018 CPBI aims to:
The 2018 CPBI is a nationwide undertaking confined to the formal sector of the economy. It covers establishments engaged in the following economic activities as defined in the 2009 Philippine Standard Industrial Classification (PSIC):
Respondents are assured by Section 26 of the Republic Act No. 10625 which states that:
"…all data furnished by a respondent to statistical inquiries, surveys and censuses of the PSA shall be considered privileged communication and as such shall be inadmissible as evidence in any proceeding. The PSA may release aggregated information from statistical inquiries, surveys and censuses in the form of summaries or statistical tables in which no reference to an individual, corporation, association, partnership, institution or business enterprise shall appear."
In general, all information collected in the 2018 CPBI refer to calendar year 2018. If the establishment uses fiscal year other than January to December 2018, this is acceptable provided previous years’ annual reports used the same period of reporting.
However, employment data collected is as of November 15, 2018.
The 2018 CPBI is a sample census which uses stratified systematic sampling design with industry sub-class (5-digit PSIC code) serving as industry strata and total employment as the second stratification variable.This method ensures that all important subgroups of the population are represented in the sample and increases the precision of “overall” estimates.
All establishments with total employment of 20 or more are taken on certainty, that is, take all regardless of industry. For establishments with total employment of less than 20,sample establishments are selected to represent each stratum. The design ensures representativeness and reliability of theestimates.
The information will be collected using seven types of questionnaires which will capture data for establishments in specific industries.