Myanmar urges public to cooperate in 2014 census

Myanmar Minister of Immigration and Population U Khin Yi Sunday urged the public to cooperate in nationwide census set for 2014 for working out a national development plan. U Khin Yi told a press conference here that the 12-day census using a work force of 120,000 will be carried out from March 30 to April 10, 2014. International technical assistance will be involved in the move, he said, citing United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The census will be based on statistics from 14 regions or states covering 70 districts, 330 townships, 3,051 wards, 64,346 villages and 13,620 village-tracts inhabited by 135 nationalities with five major religious faiths. Myanmar started census-taking process as of 1891, Khin Yi recalled. The last two census were carried out in 1973 and 1983, which registered Myanmar's population as 28.92 million and over 35 million, respectively. After 1983, once-in-a-decade nationwide censuses could no longer be taken for various reasons including conflicts in some areas and inaccessibility in some others. Myanmar's announced population in October 2012 stood at 60.98 million. According to Khin Yi, of the expected cost of 58.5 million U.S. dollars for the census, Myanmar government had committed 15 million dollars and the United Nations pledged 5 million dollars for materials and courses, leaving a funding gap of 38.5 million dollars. Experts from 13 countries as well as U.N. Statistics Division, UNFPA, U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and the World Bank will also help Myanmar in the process, another report said.