Experts gather to measure Nepal's informal economy

More than 60 high-level economists and statisticians from over 30 countries are meeting in the capital from Wednesday to make an effort to measure Nepal's informal economy. The four-day international conference on measuring the informal economies of the developing countries is being organized jointly by the South Asian Institute of Management (SAIM) and the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth (IARIW) from Sept. 23-26. Informal enterprises are not usually listed in the statistical registers used for official surveys due to which the sector contribution in value added, output and employment is not clear.

Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, SAIM director Prof. Bishnu Dev Pant said that the conference, the first of its kind in Nepal, would contribute to measuring the informal economy, improving the collection of informal sector statistics by pressuring policy makers and building analytical capacity of the agencies involved in data collection in the country.

"According to the Labour Survey, more than 50 percent of the GDP is estimated to be generated by the informal economy," he said. "But there isn't any mechanism to keep records of the informal sector."

The conference will look into various aspects of the informal economy including size, employment, output, income distribution, price hikes and basic foodstuffs, access to government education and health service and the government's plans and policies for those people who live in the informal economy.

"For most developing countries, measuring the informal economy is a challenge," said Darek Baldes, a representative of IARIW. He said that the conference would exchange ideas on the necessary information and policy on how to measure the informal economy and develop the sector.

According the SAIM, the informal sector comprises households with at least some market production, production units with low levels of organisation and technology and with unclear distinction between labour and capital or between households and production operations. They are usually not covered by establishment or enterprise surveys because they are not included in the sampling frames for the surveys.