DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF TIMOR-LESTE GENERAL DIRECTORATE OF STATISTICS MINISTRY OF FINANCE GENERAL DIRECTORATE OF STATISTICS

The Development of Statistical Business Registers in TIMOR LESTE

Contents Timor-Leste overview Statistical system in Timor-Leste Overview Business Registers Structure of the SERVE/SBR Business Activity Survey Ongoing initiatives and long-term plans Issues and challenges

Timor-Leste Timor-Leste neighbours Indonesia and Australia Independent since 2002 Population 1.183m (2015 Census) 22% live in the capital, Dili Young population – median age 18.9 Fertility rate 5.7 Life expectancy 66 years

Timor-Leste Statistical System Timor-Leste statistical system is centralized, but the central institution (GDS) works heavily with the support of municipalities statistics offices. There are 13 municipalities statistics offices which mainly add the geographical dimension to support census and surveys, such as: collecting prices for CPI, Civil Registration Vital Statistics (CRVS), facilitating training on surveys and census

Overview Business Registers General Directorate Statistics (GDS) of Timor-Leste does not have any specific activity for statistical business registers. We have two activity related with Statistical Business Registers SERVE-Services for Registration and Verification of Entrepreneurs (Other Department) BAS- Business Activity Survey (in GDS)

Two activity related with Statistical Business Registers SERVE – Services for Registration and Verification of Entrepreneurs. SERVE became the State’s service responsible for the registration of companies an sole traders, as well for the verification and publicity of their legal status, with competency, to approve company’s name, as well as to organize and manage the business registration data base. BAS- Business Activity Survey. The Business Activity Survey will provide key measures of the performance of Timor-Leste industries.

Structure of the SERVE SERVE was set up as a one stop shop to expedite the business registration process between registering a business name with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), obtaining a business license from the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Environment (MCIA) and obtaining a TIN from Domestic Revenue. A one stop shop known as SERVE has been introduced in 2013. Start in 2013 until July 2015 noted there were 9,760 businesses registered through SERVE. The SERVE registration process involves business filling in a registration form which requests general information, contact details, business location(s) and description of activities. All information being collected through the registration process is recorded electronically on Sigtas. SERVE was as a source of business registrations to use to a new BAS frame that represented the formal business sector in Timor-Leste.

BAS- Business Activity Survey. The first BAS survey was conducted by the DGE in 2010 and continually doing in every year. The BAS Frame is currently derived from 3 sources: Businesses who submitted a tax return to Domestic Revenue Businesses who received a Government Contract from Treasury Businesses from the 2010 Peace Dividend Trust (PDT) registrations

Ongoing initiatives and Long-term plans Through this meeting, we can build our statistical business register. Hopefully in the future we get some guidelines for building statistical business registers.

Issue and challenges Lack of human resources Lack of equipment Lack of Finance support Lack of cordination with others Ministries Lack of Community awarness Geography issue

THANK YOU/ OBRIGADO