On Friday, October 18, 2019, the Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB) officially closed two technical assistance missions facilitated by its international partners.

The first, a two-week Consumer Price Index (CPI) Reweighting Mission, was funded and facilitated by the Caribbean Regional Technical Assistance Center (CARTAC) and had as its main objective the development of a new and reweighted basket of goods and services for CPI and inflation rate estimation. This work follows the completion of the most recent Household Budget Survey in 2018-19, which was carried out with technical support from Statistics Canada as well as CARTAC. Price collection using the new CPI basket will commence in early 2020.

The second, a one-week mission carried out with the technical and financial support of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), was centered on pre-enumeration activities for the 2020 Population and Housing Census. Assistance was provided in finalizing preparations for the upcoming pilot of the entire census process, which includes a second test of the revised questionnaire and all supporting applications, as well as planning for the Post Enumeration Survey, a census quality assurance activity to be conducted in September 2020. The week’s activities were part of a larger ongoing program of support for the 2020 Census provided by the UNFPA.

The SIB extends its sincere thanks to Caribbean Regional Technical Assistance Center and United Nations Population Fund for their continued aid towards its efforts to improve the quality of its core economic statistics and the Population and Housing Census.