Capitalising on the Fourth Industrial Revolution’s advantages and applying information and technology (IT) are significant to running a streamlined and high-quality national census in 2019, Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue has said.

Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue chaired the first meeting of the national steering committee on national census on November 19. (Photo: VNA)

The official, who is head of the national steering committee on national census, made the statement while chairing the first meeting of the committee on November 19.

As advanced technologies create both convenience and systematic risks, he asked the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications, the Ministry of Public Security, the General Statistics Office of Vietnam (GSO) and the Ministry of Planning and Investment to anticipate risks and ensure information safety.

The population and housing census is executed every 10 years, with the country’s fifth scheduled for April 1, 2019. It is important to the Party, Government and National Assembly to evaluate people’s living conditions and housing growth.

Besides serving the need for information to assess and work out socio-economic plans, the census will provide a basis for initial assessment of the implementation of the UN Millennium Development Goals.

Earlier, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc inked Decision No.772/QD-TTG on the national census on April 1, 2019. Accordingly, the census will investigate general population information, migration status, academic attainment level, technological specialisation, disability rate, marital status, birth and death rate, population growth, labour-occupation, residency and local basic living conditions.

According to GSO Deputy General Director Pham Quang Vinh, the survey will be made at a smaller scale compared to that 10 years ago, and there will be a breakthrough in data collection, which will be made via CAPI (electronic forms installed on handheld electronic devices like tablets and mobile phones) and web forms.

The census will cost more than 1.5 trillion VND (64.5 million USD), triple the amount spent in the previous survey, Vinh said, explaining that this is due to IT costs and an increase in working hours.

He underlined that as the census is used to evaluate development, information on population and housing should be updated yearly, instead of 10 years as usual.

Collection modes should be improved as traditional paper-based methods have a huge burden of expenditure and time, he added.

(Source: VNA)