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The Census and Statistics (Quarterly Survey of Service Industries) (Amendment) Order 2008 (the Amendment Order), gazetted on October 24, 2008 and tabled at the Legislative Council on October 29, 2008, comes into operation today (January 2).
The Amendment Order revises the scope of data collected in the Quarterly Survey of Service Industries (QSSI) so as to align the classification and definition of service industries with the Hong Kong Standard Industrial Classification Version 2.0 (HSIC V2.0), which is a revised statistical classification framework launched by the Census and Statistics Department (C&SD) in end October 2008.
The C&SD conducts the QSSI as specified in the relevant Census and Statistics Order to gauge the quarterly changes in business receipts of major service industries. With the implementation of the Amendment Order, the survey coverage of QSSI is expanded to include more industries falling mainly under the categories of "information and communications", "professional, scientific and technical activities" and "social, personal and miscellaneous services" in accordance with HSIC V2.0.
"Implementation of the Amendment Order enables the C&SD to capture data of some emerging economic activities in QSSI, thereby providing more comprehensive and internationally comparable statistics for better assessment and understanding of the economic performance of relevant service industries," a spokesman for the C&SD said.
Enquiries in relation to the Amendment Order can be directed to the Business Services Statistics Section of the C&SD at telephone number 2802 1269 or email address: business-receipts@censtatd.gov.hk.
Ends/Friday, January 2, 2009
Issued at HKT 12:00
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