Introduction

The Central Statistics Office started its fourth Census of Economic Activities in January 2002. The main objective of this exercise, which is conducted every five years, is to collect statistics on the operating characteristics and structure of all types of economic activities, except agriculture, undertaken in Mauritius and Rodrigues.

This Economic and Social indicator presents the main findings of the first phase of the Census (January – December 2002) which focused on small non-agricultural units engaging nine or fewer workers, inclusive of own account and unpaid family workers. The results will be used to estimate the contribution of these units and their growing importance in the overall economy.

The methodology used is described briefly in section 2 and highlights of the results of the study are given in section 3. A detailed analysis of the data will be carried out and published early next year.

2. Methodology

The first phase of the Census of Economic Activities 2002 (CEA2002) covered all economic activities, engaging nine or fewer workers, in Mauritius and Rodrigues except:

(ii) domestic services carried out within households (e.g maids, gardeners etc.)

(iii) activities carried out by operators of Export Processing Zone, Export Service Zone, Feeport and Offshore

2.2 Unit of enquiry

The unit of enquiry was either the establishment or the owner/proprietor of an itinerant unit.

An establishment is defined as a production unit engaged in one kind, or predominantly one, kind of economic activity at a single physical location.

An itinerant unit refers to a mobile production unit which does not operate at a fixed location. Examples are hawkers and sellers along the road within a temporary makeshift location, taxi operators and units involved in construction activities.

2.3 Sampling frame

The basis for the sampling frame consisted of a list of establishments which were identified at the 2000 Housing and Population Census. This was supplemented with information from other sources such as licenses issued by the local authorities, taxi operators registered at the National Transport Authority, list of doctors from Medical Council, etc. The final number of small productive units estimated as at June 2002 was 75,267, of which 45,586 consisted of establishments and 29,681 itinerant units.

The frame of production units was stratified (grouped) according to region (urban and rural) and type of economic activities based on the National Standard Industrial Classification of Economic Activities, an adapted version of the latest revision (rev. 3) of the United Nations International Standard Industrial Classification of Economic Activities.

The final sample size was 3,200 units (3,000 for Island of Mauritius and 200 for Island of Rodrigues) which were allocated to the different strata (groups of units) according to Neymann Allocation or optimum allocation at fixed cost. This type of allocation was found to be more appropriate as compared to the usual proportional allocation since it was observed from the previous Census of Economic Activities in 1997 that the value added varied widely from one economic activity group or stratum to the other. Sampling within strata was effected by Systematic Random Sampling method to ensure representativeness. Also to capture seasonal features in production activities, the sample of 3,000 units in Mauritius was spread over 12 months while that of Rodrigues (200), over four quarters (third month of each quarter).

Being given that the small units usually do not keep proper records of their transactions, data collection was carried out by direct interviews. Each month four supervisors and 16 interviewers were responsible for the data collection in the Island of Mauritius. The survey in the Island of Rodrigues was conducted on a quarterly basis and the staff comprised one supervisor and four interviewers.

The data collection was preceded by an identification phase, during which each interviewer identified the selected production units. This phase helped to identify units that have moved, changed activities, been dormant or simply ceased operation.

Once the selected units have been successfully identified, the respondents were requested to keep daily/weekly records of their transactions in diaries provided to them. The units were visited regularly by interviewers to ensure that records are being properly kept and to answer to any queries. The completed diaries were collected at the end of the survey month.

The whole exercise was coordinated and supervised by one Chief Supervisor, who was supported by one Senior Supervisor.

The Central Information Systems Division (CISD) of the Ministry of Finance handled the data processing and production of tables using the ‘Integrated Microcomputer Processing System’ (IMPS) software.

The reference period for the collection of information was one month. However hawkers and street vendors, who might not recall the value of their transactions for too long a period, were requested to provide the information for one week only. Weekly and monthly data were then consolidated to provide estimates for the calendar year 2002.

The 2002 collection of Statistics of Economic Activities also known as 2002 Census of Economic Activities was conducted under the authority of the Statistics Act 2000 and under Regulations GN No. 87 of 2002.

This act requires the owner/Manager of a unit/establishment to furnish to the Director of Statistics such information as requested in the questionnaire and at the same time guarantees the confidentiality of all information provided.

The concepts and definitions follow recommendations of the 1993 System of National Accounts (SNA93). The classifications used were all international ones developed by the United Nations Statistical Division.

Activities were classified according to NSIC (National Standard Industrial Classification of Economic Activities) rev 3, an adapted version of ISIC (International Standard Industrial Classification of Economic Activities) Rev. 3 of 1990.

Products were classified according to CPC (Central Product Classification) Ver. 1.0 of 1998.

The number of small units covered in the Republic of Mauritius during the first phase of the CEA2002 was 75,267. Of these 60.6% (45,586) were establishments and the remaining 39.4% (29,681) consisted of itinerant units.

The majority, 82.0% (61,681), of the units was involved in four major activity groups: 39.8% in ‘Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles, motorcycles, personal and household goods’, 15.8% in ‘Manufacturing’, 15.4% in ‘Transport, storage and communication’ and 11.0% in ‘Construction’.

The number of persons engaged was estimated at 177,659, of which 110,615 (62.3%) were in establishments and 67,044 (37.7%) were in itinerant units.

The distribution by sex, excluding 781 outworkers, shows that 133,389 (75.4%) were males and 43,489 (24.6%), females. The activity groups which involved more females were ‘Education’ (mainly pre-primary education), ‘Financial intermediation’ and ‘Hotel and restaurants’ (Table 5).

Out of the 75,267 units, the majority (52,061 or 69.2%) had only one or two persons engaged, while those with three to five persons numbered 17,604 i.e 23.4% (Table 4).

An analysis by employment status showed that out of 72,966 persons who headed the productive units, 27,438 (37.6%) were employers with paid employees and 45,528 (62.4%) were own account workers who either worked on their own or were helped by unpaid family workers. The number of employees stood at 81,392 and unpaid family workers at 21,558.

The total value of goods and services produced or gross output at basic prices, in 2002 by the small units, amounted to Rs 29,596 million. The basic price is the amount receivable by the producer exclusive of taxes on products and inclusive of subsidies on products. Of this gross output, Rs 19,114 million (64.6%) represented the contribution of small establishments and Rs 10,482 million (35.4%) that of itinerant units (Table 1).

The value of goods and services at purchaser’s price used in the production process (intermediate consumption) amounted to Rs 12,706 million. The purchaser’s price is the amount payable by the purchaser including trade and transport margins and non-deductible VAT. This intermediate consumption represented 42.9% of the gross output and 75.2% of value added (Table 6). Intermediate consumption of small establishments amounted to Rs 6,533 million, while that of itinerant units to Rs 6,173 million.

Value added at basic prices, obtained after subtraction of intermediate consumption from gross output, totalled Rs 16,890 million, representing 13.5% of GDP at basic prices (Rs 125,411 million - published in June 2003 by this office). The small establishments contributed Rs 12,581 million (74.5%) to this value.

The following activity groups contributed more than three quarter (76.8%) to the value added: ‘Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles, motorcycles, personal and household goods’ - Rs 6,415 million (38.0%), ‘Transport, storage and communication’ - Rs 2,466 million (14.6%), ‘Manufacturing’ - Rs 2,423 million (14.3%) and ‘Real estate, renting and business activities’ - Rs 1,673 million (9.9%).

An amount of Rs 4,358 million was paid as compensation to employees (mostly as wages and salaries), out of which Rs 3,151 million (72.3%) was paid by the establishments.

Out of the total compensation more than three quarter (76.2%) was paid to employees working in four activity groups, namely ‘Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles, motorcycles, personal and household goods’ - Rs 1,448 million, ‘Manufacturing’ - Rs 675 million, ‘Construction’ - Rs 627 million and ‘Transport, storage and communication’ - Rs 572 million.

Table 9 shows that in 2002, the small units invested a total value of Rs 1,643 million, of which Rs 1,180 million (71.8%) by the establishments. Investment made by the small units represented around 5.2% of Gross Domestic Fixed Capital Formation (Rs 31,549 million - estimated by this office in June 2003).

The two activity groups ‘Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles, motorcycles, personal and household goods’, and ‘Transport, storage and communication’, together accounted for Rs 1,199 million or 73.0 % of the total investment incurred by the small productive units.

Fig 4: Component of value added and intermediate consumption by industry group

Table 7 presents the production structure of the major activity groups in the Republic of Mauritius. For example, in order to produce Rs 100 worth of goods and services in ‘Manufacturing’, Rs 52 worth of goods and services (intermediate consumption) were needed.. Of the resulting Rs 48 generated as value added, Rs 13 were paid as compensation of employees.

On the other hand, in ‘Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles, motorcycles, personal and household goods’ activity group, the production of Rs 100 worth of services required an expenditure of Rs 23 on intermediate goods and services and Rs 17 as compensation of employees.

It is worth noting, however, that these ratios varied widely from one activity to the other.

The operational ratios worked out in Table 8 show that the employment size of small units was highest in ‘Construction’ with an average of 3.8 persons engaged per unit.

‘Financial intermediation’ had the highest annual output (Rs 1,386,200) and value added (Rs 1,193,000) per unit followed by ‘Real estate, renting and business activities’ with Rs 1,254,400 and Rs 861,100 respectively. However, employees working in these activity groups earn higher compensation than those of other activity groups.

The sampling frame for the Census of Economic Activities conducted for year 1997 was restricted to a list of licenses issued by local authorities, supplemented with lists of units registered at relevant authorities. For the CEA2002, a list of establishment was available from the Housing census carried out in 2000. This list was supplemented with licenses issued by local authorities and units registered with relevant authorities. Thus the frames of the two censuses are not strictly comparable

The objective of this study is to collect information from productive units in view of having updated inputs to review the structure of the economy. Thus distinction should be made between the estimates published in this paper and official estimates of economic variables such as employment and national accounts aggregates which are published by this office through relevant economic and social indicators. For example, the estimate of employment from this study includes also secondary jobs or ‘moonlighters’.

Results from this study will be used for updating the national accounts estimates. But prior to this, an evaluation of the data will be carried out to arrive at an estimate of the activities not covered by this survey. The evaluation of the data will be published in an analytical report early next year.

Ministry of Economic Development, Financial Services and Corporate Affairs
Port Louis
August 2003

Contact person:

Deepuk Bahadoor
Statistician
Census of Economic Activities unit
Central Statistics Office
L.I.C Centre
Port-Louis
Tel: (230) 208-0781
Fax: (230) 211-4150
Email: cso@mail.gov.mu