General Trend in the Structural Adjustment of Ownership and the Current Situation

Abstract

Significant changes have occurred to the ownership structure in China since the Reform and Opening-up, and the economy has transitioned from a single form of ownership to multiple forms that are co-existent, competing with each other and developing together. The course of the transition in the last 30 years and the current structure of ownership are described in this chapter, based on the data of industrial enterprises according to China Statistical Yearbooks and Chinese Industry Yearbooks. Of course, estimation of the ownership structure based only on industrial enterprises may well underestimate the status of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and the role they play in the national economy; however, given the continuity of the data of industrial enterprises and the purpose of this chapter, i.e., the path of the ownership structure reform and the current situation, the data are still valuable. We must point out, at the same time, that analysis of any given set of data does not necessarily speak for the actual status of SOEs, and more scientific and accurate estimation of the status of SOEs in the national economy will be given in later chapters.