2019/20 Household Expenditure Survey to start
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The Census and Statistics Department (C&SD) conducts an HES once every five years. The survey will be conducted continuously to collect data for a whole year in order to capture all seasonal variations in household expenditure patterns.
About 13 000 living quarters throughout the territory have been randomly selected for participation in the survey. The one-year survey period is broken down into 26 cycles each lasting for two weeks. Each sampled household will take part in one cycle only.
About three weeks before commencement of each survey cycle, notification letters will be sent to the sampled living quarters to invite the households therein to participate in the survey. The letters for the first survey cycle will be sent early next week.
The questionnaire used in the HES is designed in the form of an expenditure diary. Each household member will need to record his/her expenditures in the day in the diary. In addition to paper questionnaire, online reporting is also available in this round of HES. Households can follow the information provided in the notification letters to register on the Online Questionnaire System of the C&SD to supply their information.
Interviewers, whose names are shown on the notification letters, will call on households in the sampled living quarters about one to two weeks after despatch of the letters to explain the purposes and data requirements of the survey. Each interviewer will carry a staff identity card and a certificate issued by the C&SD authorising him/her to conduct the survey. Householders should check carefully the identity of the interviewer before admitting him/her to their premises.
The 2019/20 HES is conducted under Part IIIA of the Census and Statistics Ordinance (Cap. 316). Information collected in this survey which may enable identification of individual households and persons will be kept in strict confidence. The information collected will be used strictly for statistical purposes only.
The results of the HES are essential for the compilation of the CPI series. The CPI is an important economic indicator which measures changes in the price level of consumer goods and services generally purchased by households.
The current CPI series are compiled based on the expenditure patterns obtained from the 2014/15 HES. The results of the 2019/20 HES, which will be available around mid-2021, will be used to update the expenditure weights of the CPIs.
For enquiries about the 2019/20 HES, please contact the Household Expenditure Survey Section of the C&SD at telephone number 3188 2107 or email address hesurvey@censtatd.gov.hk.
Ends/Friday, September 13, 2019
Issued at HKT 16:30
Issued at HKT 16:30
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