China's first national economic census entered its registration phase on New Year's Day after months of preparation, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Uniformed census officials instructed corporate staff to fill out census forms in at least two big Beijing-based companies Saturday.

This census is designed to draw an economic panorama of China's fast-expanding secondary and tertiary industries and complete a database covering all economic sectors. This will enable the central government to map plans for economic and social growth.

The census will survey 5 million corporate people, involve nearly 10 million statisticians and volunteers and cost billions of yuan.

Lin Xianyu, NBS' deputy director, said during census registration Saturday, that "comprehensive and accurate data collection is vital for the success of the census."

According to a circular jointly released by the Office of the Leading Group of the First National Economic Census under the State Council, the Ministry of Supervision and the NBS, refusal to register accurate data, the leaking of census data by census officials and institutions and tampering with data would all be dealt with seriously.

Data gathered during the census cannot be used as evidence for legal prosecution, an NBS official said.

The survey will cover such economic sectors as building construction and transportation sector and scientific research. It will collect information on staff size, financial conditions and productivity management.

When the registration is concluded at the end of March of this year, the census will enter a data processing phase, and the final outcome will be released in September of 2005, according to the NBS.

From now on, China will conduct an economic census every five years.

China launched State-level trial census programs in three provinces of Jilin, Zhejiang and Sichuan and the city of Beijing in 2004.

(Xinhua News Agency January 2, 2005)