The Board of Trade shall, for the purpose of providing at intervals general surveys of the state of trade and business, take a census of production in the year nineteen hundred and forty-nine and in every subsequent year, and a census of distribution and other services in any year that may be prescribed by order of the Board, being a calendar year beginning not less than twelve months after the date of the order.

Any person carrying on an undertaking may be required to furnish returns for the purposes of a census under this Act; and the census may either be taken so as to cover all undertakings in the field of production, distribution or other services, as the case may be, or may be confined to such classes or descriptions of those undertakings respectively as may be prescribed; and, without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing provisions of this subsection, the Board of Trade may by order provide for exempting from the obligation to furnish returns for the purposes of a census under this Act, either wholly or to the prescribed extent, and either unconditionally or subject to the prescribed conditions, any persons or any prescribed class or description of persons.

The matters about which a person may be required to furnish returns for the purposes of a census under this Act shall be such of the matters set out in the Schedule to this Act as may be prescribed.

A census under this Act shall require returns to be furnished with respect to the calendar year next preceding the date of the census: