Survey on family income and expenses completed in Oman

Muscat: The National Center for Statistics and Information (NCSI) on Sunday completed field work to survey the expenses and incomes several families. The exercise was conducted by the Sultanate for the fourth time targeting 5,660 families including Omanis and expatriates.

Yaqoub bin Khamis Al Zadjali, director of the social surveys department at the NCSI, said: “The nature of the survey created a number of challenges for field researchers as it covers a full year and deals with spending, consumption and income issues.”

He added: “Some goods and services spends in certain months of the year are more than others. Conversely, for other goods and services, this requires monitoring spending and income throughout the year to take note of all seasonal conditions.”

Al Zadjali reiterated the confidentiality of data under the Statistics and Information Law issued by Royal Decree No. 55/2019.

He explained that field data, which included collecting data through field researchers through handheld devices, was reviewed by the observer and then sent to the centre for further review and verification.

With the results of the survey made available in the first quarter of 2020, this data will be compared with the previous survey data to see trends of highs and lows in the indicators, he further said.