BBS may publish preliminary report on HIES early Apr

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) is likely to publish the primary report on the “Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) 2022” by the first week of April as it has completed data collection for the survey.

“We will publish the primary report on HIES 2022 by the first week of April and the final report by December this year as we have completed the data collection across the country,” a senior BBS official told The Business Post.

He also said BBS will reveal the key findings of the survey at that time where it will provide the number of poor people across the country.

Enumerators of the project have started collecting the data on households from January 01 which ended on December 31, BBS officials said.

Under the latest one, BBS has incorporated a new section called ‘food security’ into previous sections in the data collection questionnaire in a bid to ensure more accuracy in the HIES survey.

The sections are household information, education, health, economic activities and salary or wage-based employment, non-agri institutions, house related information, agriculture, other assets and income, consumed food, non-food and services, and food security.

The HIES survey will also provide some social data, income and wealth distribution, some social indictors like education and health, and so on.

The BBS is collecting data for the 17th HIES survey 2022 through a computerised system (CAPI) for getting quality survey results aimed at estimating absolute poverty and other income and expenditure data on Bangladeshi citizens.

“Our enumerators have completed its data collection on December 31 which started on January 01. Then we will compile the data and finalise a preliminary report in the last week of March or the first week of April,” said Mohiuddin Ahmed, Director of the HIES project, told The Business Post.

The BBS started data collection from 14,400 households (HH) in 720 sampling areas across the country, he added.

“After the Covid-19 pandemic and domestic and global crises, the upcoming HIES data will be very much helpful for the policymakers and researchers for framing development policy of the country in future,” he also said.

Bangladesh’s poverty rate was estimated at 24.3 per cent and the hardcore poor was 12.9 per cent of the total population, according to the previous HIES report 2016.

BBS collects income and expenditure information about a family on some 265 food items and 441 non-food items all the year round, he also said.

The HIES survey would use the data of the census, quality data of income and expenditure of all people.

Bangladesh estimates its poverty rate based on the “Cost of Basic Needs (CBN)” method. If a person can consume 2,122 kilo calorie per day through his/her income, then he/she is treated as non-poor.