Survey.

Chief Statistician Janet Smith Bradshaw refused to be drawn on how many businesses have responded.

She said: "The questionnaires are coming in slowly but I can't give you numbers at this point.'' And she denied the deadline extension indicated failure despite rumours among the business community that even fewer firms had responded than last year when just 400 replied out of a possible 1,500.

Ms. Smith Bradshaw said: "The deadline is today but we will continue to collect data beyond that date -- probably for another month.

"That is normal in any survey. But we would certainly hope to do better than last year.'' Govt. to extend survey deadline However businesses contacting The Royal Gazette had said filling in their company's ID number was proving particular unpopular -- many had opted to leave it blank.

But Ms Smith Bradshaw said the information would be useless without it because the Government wouldn't know how firms were doing compared to last year.

She denied the form needed redesigning to make it more user-friendly.

The Government points out that firms benefited from statistics because they can compare their own finances within industry trends.

They can also work out how their industry is doing relative to other sectors.

Chamber of Commerce President Cris Valdes-Dapena said her organisation had backed the drive for better statistics because it would help business and it would help Government understand the commercial sector better.

But she felt Government would move to making the survey compulsory if fears of a poor response were realised.

She said: "I think ultimately there will be legislation with additional bolstering for the commitment to confidentially with a penalty for improper disclosure of statistics. It's inevitable.'' She pointed out that disclosure of such financial information was commonplace in other countries where income tax operated but it was anathema here.

SURVEY SUR