Economic experts have hailed the Second Census of Economic Activities (CEA-2) which the National Statistical Office (NSO) announced it will carry out from August to December 2026.
Commissioner for Statistics Dr. Victor
Sandikonda has confirmed this in a statement, indicating that the exercise will
be conducted with financial and technical support from the World Bank through
the Southern Africa Development Committee (SADC) Regional Statistics Capacity
project.
Economic expert Brown Chitekwere
acknowledges the significance of the exercise in economic record-keeping,
contributing to the development of the country.
“This
exercise is crucial to our country because it will shed some light on the
economic activities happening in the country and help to identify
which sectors that are performing well, thereby promoting economic growth,” said Chitekwere.
Commenting on the same matter, an Economist
Vincent Matai emphasized that the exercise can only be beneficial if it is a
follow-up to the previous assessment to gauge the country’s economic performance.
“The country needs an economic audit
update on comparable assessment of the Malawi economic structure and
performance to check if at all the previous audit
had identified some emerging economic trends and vulnerabilities that will be important
to strengthen and act as evidence-based for national economic planning,” Matai
said.
Under
the exercise, NSO will conduct the census of economic establishments, a
comprehensive nationwide statistics operation to collect detailed information
on the economic activities of small, medium, and large-scale enterprises across
Malawi.
According
to NSO, the exercise will be essential for assessing business contributions to
the national economy and will aid evidence-based development planning, investment
decision-making, and the formulation of economic policies.
The
census will be conducted under the motto:”
Every Business Counts-Participate in the Measurement of Malawi’s Economy”.
