Accordingly, the second phase of the 2021 economic census will be carried out across all communes, wards and towns in the country, aiming to collect information on more than five million individual production and business establishments and over 45,000 religious establishments.

In the context of the complicated developments of the COVID-19 epidemic, the second phase of collection information faces many challenges. Therefore, the Central Census Steering Committee and the census steering committees of the provinces and centrally-run cities must be proactive and flexible in directing and performing the task, ensuring the census progress, information quality; while at the same time, ensuring effective epidemic prevention and control.

The 2021 economic census aims to collect basic information from businesses and cooperatives; non-business units, associations; individual production and business establishments; religious establishments on the production and business situation, the digital economy, e-commerce and specific products of industries and localities. The results of the census will serve to comprehensively assess the status and trends of socio-economic development, and serve as the basis for building the country's socio-economic development strategies and plans.

The 2021 economic census will take place nationwide in two phases, with the first from March 1 to May 30 and the second from July 1 to July 30. For localities with 8,000 enterprises or more, the work of collecting information on businesses will be completed by August 2021.

The second phase of the economic census is expected to see the participation of about 30,000 people; in which, about 25,000 statisticians with professional qualifications, investigative skills and who are able to use smart mobile devices (tablets or smartphones) will be recruited to carry out the task of collecting information in the area.

The economic census is one of the three national statistical censuses specified in the Law on Statistics with a data collection cycle of five years.

Carried out under Prime Minister Decision No 307/QD-TTg dated February 27,2020, the 2021 economic census is the 6th economic census in Vietnam. Previously, the GSO presided over the implementation of the first economic census in 1995 and the fifth in 2017.