The Ghana Statistical Service will, on Monday, January 15, 2024, start the Integrated Business Establishment Survey across the country.
Phase I of the survey will provide a comprehensive listing of all business units in the country and information on their characteristics, while Phase II, which will start in June, will involve a sample survey of selected businesses to obtain detailed data on their activities.
Under the exercise, all business units in the country would be enumerated both physically and online, with two new modules: data on the environment and digital finance.
The exercise is being implemented by the Service in partnership with the Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Association of Ghana Industries, the World Bank, and other stakeholders.
Professor Samuel Annim, the Government Statistician launching the survey in Accra, said the service had trained field enumerators to ensure complete national coverage, adding that the exercise aims to produce an updated statistical business register and generate important data for national development.

The exercise, Professor Annim stressed, would provide an update on the employment status of workers employed by businesses to help bridge the gap between the labour needs of firms and the available skills.
It will also provide data on the informal sector to guide the development of policies to formalize the economy and improve workers’ welfare.

For her part, Dr. Grace Bediako, the board chairperson of the GSS, said the survey this time would do things differently, facilitating a more coherent system. She said she hoped that at the end of the activity, it would enable the authorities to understand the demand and supply variables of the labour sector.

The last survey in 2013 produced 638,224 businesses.
The 2024 survey is expected to enumerate 2.4 million businesses in the country.