Country experience: Uruguay
5.41. The National Statistics Institute (INE) of Uruguay is in charge of the creation and maintenance of the SBR. Information sources used for the maintenance of the register are divided into administrative sources (such as the tax authority, social security agencies, internal economic surveys and information from other ministries) and other sources (including phone directories, web pages, members of commercial chambers and press releases and other information on publicly traded companies). The first version of the business register was created after the economic census of 1996. In 2007, a new agreement between the Institute, the tax authority (DGI) and the Social Security Agency (BPS) resulted in a new version of the business register, with those institutions as the main sources of data. In addition, the Ministry of Tourism provides data on hotel occupation. Information from companies operating under the free zone regime is obtained through a census of those companies.
5.42. In the new version of the register, INE includes information on foreign ownership and on involvement in trade (in services), following the guidelines designed in the Inter-American Development Bank project for the Latin American Business Register and MSIT 2010. In Uruguay, the SBR will serve as the main tool for detecting enterprises engaged in international trade in services. As part of its new design, information on main and secondary activities, goods and services produced and the destination of the sales (national or foreign and country of destination), the origin of capital (national or foreign) and foreign ownership will also be included. A new survey will subsequently be designed to better estimate international trade in services and FATs. More information on the definition of statistical units used in the SBR of Uruguay is available online.
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