Tasks of the Second National Economic Census Basically Met with Significant Achievements
Mr. Ma Jiantang
Deputy Head of the Leading Group of
the Second National Economic Census Office of the State Council
Commissioner of the National Bureau of Statistics of
December 25, 2009
The Second National Economic Census, which took over two years, has basically completed and yielded important outcomes. Today we hold a press conference here to brief you on the implementation and major achievements of the Second National Economic Census.
I. Major tasks and process of the Economic Census
The main objective of the Second National Economic Census is to investigate in a comprehensive way the secondary and tertiary industry in terms of size, distribution, the status of industrial organization, structure and technical development and the composition of production factors; to have a clear picture of the basic conditions of enterprises of different sorts and their per unit energy consumption; and to develop and perfect the establishment register covering all sectors of national economy, the basic information database and the statistical electronic geographical information system. By conducting this census, we hope to further consolidate the basis for statistical work, improve the system of national accounts in order to provide sound and accurate statistical information for the strengthening and improvement of macro-economic regulation and control and the scientific formulation of mid- and long term development plans.
The economic census covered all legal person units, establishments and self-employed individuals in the secondary and tertiary industries within the
Economic census is an important investigation into the national conditions and strength and a huge social mobilization during the peacetime. Under the unified leadership of the Central Party Committee and the State Council, all localities and departments took active part in the organization and implementation of the census in line with the principle of “unified leadership, division of labour and coordinative work between departments, decentralized responsibility among localities, participation by all parties”. Thanks to the hard work of 3 million enumeration instructors and enumerators and close collaboration of near 10 million accounting and statistical staff of the enumeration units, the economic census, which started in November 2007, has completed over the past 2 years, all stages of work including organizational set-up, census plan development, conduct of pilot work, publicity and mobilization, training of personnel, division of enumeration districts, verification of reporting units, fill-in of questionnaires, data entry, data verification, quality check, aggregation and evaluation. Now we have entered the stage of data dissemination and analysis.
I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of the Office of Economic Census of the State Council and the National Bureau of Statistics to extend our sincere gratitude to all localities and departments for your strong support, to all reporting units for your close cooperation, and in particular, to the 3 million enumerators for your dedication and down-to-earth work, as well as the media for your enthusiastic and timely report.
II. Major characteristics of the Economic Census
1. Precise organization, guarantees from many ways
The State Council set up the Leading Office of National Economic Census, which is headed by Vice-premier Li Keqiang and composes of all relevant departments of the Central Government and the State Council in order to unify the leadership of this census. On May 12, 2008, Vice-premier Li Keqiang presided over the first plenary session of the leading office as well as the national videoconference and laid out the work of the second national economic census. The signature of contracts of objectives and responsibilities by governments at all levels strengthened the organization and leadership of the census. The concerted efforts made by all relevant departments produced great synergy. Effective organization and leadership guaranteed the success of the census.
2. Sound design, serious pilot work
By learning the experiences of the designing work of the first national economic census, asking the advice from localities, departments, experts and scholars, and basing on the problems reflected from the pilot verification of reporting units and the integrated pilot work of census, a number of revisions and improvements have been made to the census plan. Compared with the plan of the previous economic census, this plan shows significant improvements in three aspects: first, for survey of consumption of energy and water resources, the coverage expands from industrial enterprises above designated size to all units in the secondary and tertiary industries. And the survey of utilization of general equipments in high-energy consumption industries is added. Second, a nationally unified plan for verification of reporting units is formulated. The complete count of reporting units using the “inch-by-inch search” approach ensured that duplication and omission is avoided. Thirdly, given the complexity of self-employed individuals, we formulated a unified survey plan so as to ensure the data quality in terms of the number of self-employed individuals and the number of employees. The fact that all localities and departments strictly abided by the rules of the census plan ensured the consistency of the census work.
3. Rigorous process, careful verification
A detailed and complete work process with emphasis on the control of data quality at all stages is defined for this census. A notice issued in July 2008 required that reporting units should improve and perfect their statistical records with the aim of ensuring the accuracy of source data. Adequate attention was paid to the training of a few million enumerators and nearly ten million of personnel completing questionnaires at the reporting units to ensure that they correctly understand the content of the census. Electronic map was used to divide enumeration districts and “inch-by-inch search” of reporting units was conducted. The results were compared with the list maintained by the industrial and commercial administrations and taxation bureaus in order to avoid duplication or omission in counting. To ensure the data quality of questionnaires at grass-root level, each reporting unit received instructions on faithful completion of questionnaires. Verification was made at each level and errors were immediately inquired and corrected once detected. Specific persons and requirements were identified for the control of data quality, and quality was ensured and signed by the responsible persons at each stage.
4. Rigorous post check, strictly enforce discipline
We formulated a sound and rigorous sampling plan for data quality check according to the common practice and experiences of past censuses. Around 400 professional elites were seconded nationwide to compose 30 post-check teams. They conducted a large-scale data quality check to all provinces except
The census work always follows the guideline of bringing into full play the role of laws in regulating, orientating and safeguarding the census. All localities made wide publicity of the relative laws and regulations and strengthened the supervision and inspection of the census work, reinforced the punishment of violation of law and discipline with focus on cases in which leading cadres in local governments, census workers and respondents are involved in violation of laws and codes of conduct. The national census office directly dealt with 12 cases in 6 provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) and gave corresponding punishment to the persons liable and transferred a number of cases to localities for investigation or supervised their investigation. The local census offices actively conducted the law inspection and circulated cases of violation of laws and discipline through various channels. The exposure of some of the cases through media intimidated the behaviors of violation of laws and discipline.
III. Significant Achievements of the Economic Census
1. Making a thorough investigation on the major aggregates
By the end of 2008 (hereinafter), there were 7,099 thousand legal person units engaged in the secondary and tertiary industries which was 37.3 percent growth as compared with that of the first National Economic Census conducted in 2004; that of the establishments were 8,864 thousand, up by 29.9 percent; self-employed individuals were 28.737 million, an increase of 31.4 percent.
There were 4,959 thousand corporate units, an increase of 1,709 thousand, up by 52.6 percent. Of this total, that of the state-owned enterprises were 143 thousand, a decrease of 36,000, or down by 20 percent; that of the private enterprises were 3,596 thousand, an increase of 1,614 thousand, up by 81.4 percent.
There were 355.07 million self-employed individuals with business licenses engaged in the secondary and tertiary industries, as compared with that of the first National Economic Census conducted in 2004, it was up by 31.9 percent or an increase of 85.866 million people.
The total paid-up capital of the corporate units engaged in the secondary and tertiary industries reached 34.0 trillion yuan, an increase of 15.8 trillion yuan as compared with that at the end of 2004, or up by 87.1 percent.
The total assets of the corporate units engaged in the secondary and tertiary industries reached 207.8 trillion yuan, up by 114.8 percent over that at the end of 2004 with an increase of 111.1 trillion yuan.
Aggregate indicators such as: enterprises liabilities, owner’s equity, revenue form principal business, total profits and output of major products are collected from the census.
2. Making a thorough investigation on major economic structure
Of all the legal person units engaged in the secondary and tertiary industries, 69.9 percent of them were corporate units; government units and institutions were 13.5 percent; social groups and other legal person units accounted for 16.6 percent. Of the total number of self-employed individuals with licenses, 8.8 percent of them are engaged in the secondary industry and 91.2 percent for the tertiary industry. As for the corporate units, 96.3 percent of them were domestic funded enterprises; enterprises with funds from
Of all the employees in the secondary and tertiary industries, that in the secondary industry accounted for 48.8 percent, and 51.2 percent for the tertiary industry. Of the total employees of units, the top five sectors were: manufacturing industry 38.2 percent, construction industry 14.3 percent, public management and social organizations 8.2 percent, wholesale and retail industry 6.9 percent and 6.3 percent for education.
Of the total enterprise’ capitals, that of state-owned enterprises accounted for 23 percent, it was 8.1 percentage points lower than in 2004; that of the share-holding enterprises accounted for 28.7 percent, an increase of 7.7 percentage points over that in 2004; that of the private enterprises accounted for 12.3 percent, 3.3 percentage points higher over that in 2004.
Of the total paid-up capitals of enterprises, state capitals accounted for 33.4 percent; collective capitals, 3.0 percent; legal person capital, 25.5 percent; individual capital, 22.9 percent; capitals from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan province, 6.1 percent and 9.1 percent foreign capitals.
All the above-mentioned indicators and other aggregated indicators can be regrouped by ownership, by industry, by sector, by size and by region.
3. Making a thorough investigation on energy production and consumption and the basic condition of enterprises’ science and technology activities
In 2008, the total output of primary energy was 2.65 billion tons of standard coal equivalent, of which, the output of coal was 2.8 billion tons (in kind); that of crude oil, 195.05 million tons; natural gas, 80.3 billion cubic meters. The total energy consumption was 2.91 billion tons of standard coal equivalent.
By the end of 2008, of the total industrial enterprises above designated size, 48,637 enterprises conducted science and technology activities, accounting for 11.6 percent; 27,278 enterprises conducted R&D activities, accounting for 6.5 percent; there were 3,092 thousand people engaged in science and technology activities, up by 68.2 percent over that in 2004. The total input in science and technology activities reached 594.17 billion yuan, up by 147.4 percent over that in 2004; of this total, the input in research and development (R&D) activities which represent the independent innovative capacity of enterprises totaled 307.31 billion yuan, up by 178.2 percent over that in 2004. The intensity of the input in R&D was 0.61 percent, and it was higher than that in 2004, which stood at 0.56 percent.
Among the large and medium-sized enterprises, 37.1 percent of them were engaged in science and technology activities, and 24.9 percent were engaged in R&D activities. The total input in R&D reached 268.13 billion yuan, the intensity of input was 0.84 percent, and it was higher than that in 2004, which was 0.71 percent.
The information such as: water consumption, status of informationization, education attainments, technical titles, and skill degrees of employees, and share-holding status, jurisdiction and business birth record of enterprises were all covered by the census.
Meanwhile, according to the accounting system of
In addition, according to the results from the economic census, the total energy consumption in the year 2008 has been revised to 2.91 billion tons of standard coal equivalent, which was 2.12 percent higher than the originally released preliminary data. Revisions have also been made accordingly to total energy consumption figures for the period of 2005 to 2007. Basing on the revised energy consumption data from 2006 to 2008 and GDP estimate of 2008, the unit energy consumption of GDP for the year of 2008 was down by 5.2 percent over that in the previous year, or 12.45 percent lower than that in the year 2005.
IV．To Further Improve the Post-census Work
1. To have better development and application of census data
A great number of basic and detailed statistics were obtained from the census and they are valuable treasures. Experts and scholars from the relevant departments and scientific research agencies will be organized to have in-depth and systematic development on the entire census data. We do these to have a full play of the census data in providing the basis in formulating the
2. To have better maintenance and updating of the business register
The quality of register of the establishments has been further improved after the census. The current register is more complete and accurate as well as more convenient to be used in practice. We will further cooperate with relevant agencies such as public sector reform, civil affairs, taxation, industrial and commerce and quality inspection to further standardize the unit classification, to further improve the methods of register maintenance and updating, therefore, the cases of birth, death and change of the units will be reflected timely in the register. No duplication and no omission will be adopted as key means in improving the data quality. Joint establishment and co-sharing of the register will be untaken with relevant agencies and to have a full play of the basic functions of the register in the managements of the country.
3. To have better development of statistical geographical information system
The census enumeration area classification was electronized in the census, which laid a good foundation for developing the statistical geographical information system in later period of the census. A draft national statistical geographical information system development plan was formulated with preliminary results achieved from the integrated pilot work undertaken in two chosen provinces. This activity will be gradually promoted across the nation in the next step. This will have an important significance in improving the national statistical capacity, data quality and in strengthening the management of social economic activity units.
In case of discrepancy between English translation and the original Chinese text, the Chinese edition shall prevail.