Govt approves timeline for Russian census 2020
MOSCOW. July 19 (Interfax) – The Russian government has agreed to a proposal from the Economic Development Ministry to hold a census in October 2020 and a pilot survey is scheduled for 2018, according to the decisions published on the Cabinet of Ministers’ website following the meeting that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev held on this subject on June 11.
The Government ordered the Economic Development Ministry to prepare and submit before August 21 a draft government resolution on organizing of the All-Russian Census in 2020, stipulating a pilot survey (a trial population census) held in 2018.
Furthermore, the Russian Economic Development Ministry was ordered to prepare and submit by August 21 a draft resolution on setting up a governmental commission on the organization of the census in 2020 alongside the draft of the relevant regulation and proposals on personal candidacies for the membership of the commission, the Russian government’s website said.
The Economic Development Ministry was also ordered to prepare and present by December 1, 2018 to the government all proposals on the optimization of the fiscal expenditures related to the holding of the All-Russian census in 2020, the processing of collected data, the summing up of the results and their official publication.
The head of Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), Alexander Surinov, said in late June that in general, the costs of the next population census are estimated at 50 billion rubles. The census methodology will depend on the amounts of financing, he then said.
“We are ready for everything. If our budget estimate is backed, we are planning to conduct the census using tablets, internet and machine-readable documents,” Surinov said.
Surinov also emphasized that Rosstat had no plans to introduce any serious changes to the census paper (questionnaire) used during the 2010 census. However, the questions that would allow a correct assessment of migration parameters will be elaborated, he said.
“We have certain obligations towards our colleagues in CIS countries and in the Eurasian Economic Commission. We should be asking more detailed questions to allow a correct evaluation of migration, particularly labor migration,” Surinov said.
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