Half of the economy is informal: Economic Census

It has been found that 50% of the currently operating business institutions in the country are running without being registered, which means the country has almost half of its economic activities unaccounted in the formal economy.
According to the first National Economic Census-2075 conducted by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), out of the total 923,356 big and small business institutions in Nepal, 460,422 establishments have been operating without license.
According to the CBS, 54% of the operating businesses in the country are based on Wholesale and Retail sectors. However, Wholesale and Retail sectors account for only 30% of the country’s total employment. Even though, only 11.27% of the institutions are based on factory production, this sector accounts for 15% of the country’s total employment.
As stated in the statistics, the institution’s actively engaged manpower, in other words the number of people employed, adds up to 3,228,457; out of which 2,012,237 are male (62.3%) and 1,216,220 are female (37.7%). According to the Bureau, the employment number per institution stands at 3.5.
Amongst the business institutions operating nation wide, Nepalese nationals are operating 817,000 of the institutions. Similarly, 9,932 are being operated by Indian nationals and merely 333 institutions are being operated by nationals from other nations.
According to the report, the number of institutions under debt for business purposes is recorded at 320,354, which is 35.6% of the total number of business establishment.
After Kathmandu, Jhapa, Rupandehi, Morang, and Sunsari have the highest number of business institutions in operation and therefore, according to the regional data, Province no. 3 has the highest number of institutions in operation where as the Karnali district has the lowest numbers in operation. Only 4% of the total number of business institutions in Karnali are said to be in operation. However, in Province no. 3, 31% of the businesses are in operation, thus making it the highest.
According to the Bureau, Province no. 3 consists of 28,256 establishments, making it the province with highest number of business entities in the country. The maximum numbers of firms operating in the country are based on the wholesale and Retail sectors. The Wholesale and Retail sectors account for 49,869 institutions, which make up about 53.94% of the total institutions, and the sector employs 988,346 people. This is equal to 30.65% of the total number of people employed. The number of business institutions operated by male admins is 648,773, which makes up to 70.26%, whereas the institutions operated by female admins is only 273,436, which makes up for the rest of the 29.31%. The lowest numbers of institutions in operation are located in Karnali, standing at a number of only 43,000 institutions in the district.
According to the CBS, the statistics and data have been obtained on the basis of thorough research on 21 different subjects. The Kathmandu district consists of 123,994 business institutions while Manang has only 487 business institutions.
According to the Economic Census, it has included Banking, Finances, Airline Business, Wholesale and Retail, Agriculture, Forestry, Supply Management, Education, Health, Travel, Housing, Factory Production, Professional Activities, Maintenance, Production and Processing Activities, Human Economic Earning Activities, and Arts and Entertainment, but has not included any details of mobile phones in the reports due to locational issues. Similarly, the Bureau has not included fruits, and government reports either.