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ABS BUSINESS REGISTER

OBJECTIVES

The ABS Business Register program aims to produce the most comprehensive and accurate Business Register (a list of organisations that participate in Australia's formal economy) possible, including structural and classification information about each organisation. The data on the ABS Business Register are used to: provide frames for ABS economic collections; provide information to support ABS economic survey processes; produce statistics on ABS Business Demography; and facilitate the integration of direct collect and administrative economic data within the ABS.

The data on the ABS Business Register are primarily sourced from the Australian Business Register (ABR), the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and from the ABS profiling of large, complex businesses. The unit record information on the ABS Business Register is not available for release outside of ABS.

OUTPUTS

The main outputs derived from the ABS Business Register are:

• survey frames for use in ABS economic data collection
• information to support ABS economic survey processes including data editing
• business demography information published in Counts of Australian Businesses, including Entries and Exits (cat. no. 8165.0)
• business structure reports for internal analysis and research and to meet client requests by Australian and state government agencies and industry associations at the aggregate level
• infrastructure to support the use of administrative economic data.

• provide technical assistance, fully funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, on Business Registers to priority countries in Asia and the Pacific region - due December 2015
• migrate the international investment collection to the ABS Business Register - due June 2016
• re-develop the ABS Business Register to be the integrating spine for all firm level data and provide the infrastructure for unit and small area statistical products - due December 2017
• work with the ABR and ATO to improve quality in ABR and ATO indicator series - ongoing
• geospatially enable the ABS Business Register - ongoing.