Office of the Leading Group of the State Council for the Second National Economic Census

National Bureau of Statistics of China

December 25, 2009

The second economic census was conducted in China in 2008 with the aim to keep abreast of the development of the secondary and tertiary industries[1] of China in terms of their size and layout, and to grasp the actuality of industry organization, industry structure, industry technology and composition of production factors, and to feel out basic situation of all units on energy consumption, to establish a sound system of Business Register and Geography Information System, and to provide scientific and precise statistics records for strengthening and improving macro-control, along with making long-term development plan. The reference time point for the economic census was December 31st of 2008, and the flow data covered the whole year of 2008. The economic census covered all legal units, establishments and self-employed individuals[2] who were engaged in secondary and tertiary industries within the territory of China. The main contents of census include the basic characteristics of the units, the employees, the financial situation, the production and business operation situations, the production capacity, the energy consumption, as well as the scientific and technological activities.

The enumeration, data check and data processing of the economic census was completed, thanks to the joint efforts over the past nearly two years of relevant departments at different level and from all enumerators. Office of the Leading Group of the State Council for the Second National Economic Census made a spot-check among 30 regions by using the stratified systematic cluster random sampling, a total of 21,843 legal units and establishments (2.46‰) in 186 census districts and 24,263 self-employed individuals (0.48‰) were covered in this process. According to the results, the comprehensive error rate is 3.5‰, which met the set target of data quality. Approved by the State Council, the Office of the Leading Group for Economic Census under the State Council and the National Bureau of Statistics will release Communiqués of the Economic Census to the public according to Regulations on National Economic Census. The first Communiqué is disseminated as follows.

I. Basic Condition of Units

By the end of 2008, there were altogether 7,099,000 legal units engaged in the secondary and tertiary industries, up by 37.3 percent or an increase of 1,930,000 over the first economic census in 2004, there were 8,864,000 establishments, up by 29.9 percent or an increase of 2,040,000 over 2004, the number of self-employed individuals with licenses was 28,737,000, up by 31.4 percent or an increase of 6,869,000 over 2004 (see table 1).

Table 1  Number of Units and Self-employed Individuals with Licenses
	Units (10,000)	Proportion (%)
I. Legal Units	709.9	100.0
Corporations	495.9	69.9
Departments and Institutions	95.9	13.5
Social Groups and Other Legal Units	118.1	16.6
II. Establishments	886.4	100.0
Secondary Industry	230.0	25.9
Tertiary Industry	656.4	74.1
III. Self-employed Individuals with Licenses	2873.7	100.0
Secondary Industry	253.8	8.8
Tertiary Industry	2619.9	91.2

Compared to the first economic census in 2004, there were 1,709,000 more legal units, up by 52.6 percent. Of this, the number of state-owned corporations was 143,000, down by 20 percent or a decrease of 36,000, that of collective corporations 192,000, down by 44 percent or a decrease of 151,000, share-holding cooperatives corporations 64,000, down by 40.2 percent or a decrease of 43,000, that of joint-operation, limited liability and share-holding corporations was 659,000, up by 52.5 percent or an increase of 227,000, private enterprises 3,596,000, up by 81.4 percent or an increase of 1,614,000, other domestic funded enterprises 119,000, up by 116.3 percent or an increase of 64,000, that of enterprises with funds from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan was 84,000, up by 13.5 percent or an increase of 10,000, and 102,000 for foreign funded enterprises, up by 30.2 percent or an increase of 24,000 (see table 2).