The 2000 Questionnaire Survey for China’s Enterprise Executives was organized and carried out by China Enterprise Executive Surveying System affiliated with the Information Center of the Development Research Center of the State Council. 15,000 copies of the questionnaire were distributed in mid-August 2000, and 5,057 valid questionnaires were returned by enterprises of all trades in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. The proportions of state-owned enterprises and non-state enterprises were 38.2% and 61.8% respectively. The percentages in terms of large, medium and small-sized enterprises were 25.8%, 47% and 27.2%. Of the persons surveyed, 94.9% hold positions as chairman of the board, general manager, factory director or Party secretary.

Regarding judgement about the macro-economic situation, this survey asks enterprise executives such questions as economic trend, effect of the state’s macro-economic policy and the enterprises’ production and operation conditions.

The survey findings show that the majority of enterprise executives hold that, with the enforcement of various macro-control policies since the beginning of this year, the national economy has developed a warming-up trend amidst steady growth. The production and performance of the enterprises have improved remarkably, the quality of the national economic performance has been improving steadily, the “Western development” strategy has won active response from many enterprise executives. The majority of them show full confidence in developing the high-tech industries. However, enterprise executives also hold that the foundation for the current economic rebound is not solid and firm, and the problem of inadequate demands has not been fundamentally solved. And the problems such as irrational economic structure and low profitability of enterprises are still the important factors bottlenecking the economic development. Enterprise executives hope the government will continue to implement the active macro-control policies, speed up strategic adjustment of the economic structure, deepen the reforms of state-owned enterprises and further improve the quality and efficiency of the economic growth.

I. The performance of macro economy showing rebounding

Majority of enterprise executives believe that China’s national economy is expected to reverse its declining trend. The survey findings show that 80.5% of the executives are optimistic about the current trend of the economic performance. Of them, 11.9% say that it shows “obvious rebound and upbeat prospect”, and 68.6% feel “cautiously upbeat about the rebound” (Table 1).

Table 1 Enterprise executives’ judgement on the trend of current economic performance

	Obvious rebound, upbeat future	Cautious confidence in rebound	Linger in the bottom	Possible to decline further	Difficult to judge
Total	11.9	68.6	11.3	4.0	4.2
Eastern area	12.8	69.7	9.2	4.0	4.3
Central area	10.1	68.5	13.7	4.1	3.6
Western area	11.7	66.3	13.4	3.9	4.7
SOEs	10.3	71.3	10.3	3.5	4.6
Collective enterprises	13.2	65.8	14.5	4.2	2.3
Private enterprises	19.7	55.1	12.8	4.6	7.8
Shareholding cooperative enterprises	13.3	62.4	14.0	5.8	4.5
Incorporated companies	13.0	69.7	8.8	5.3	3.2
Limited liability companies	10.8	69.6	11.8	3.6	4.2
Enterprises funded by foreign and Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan investors	14.6	69.6	8.9	3.0	3.9

As to judgement on the macro-economic situation, 52.8% of enterprise executives surveyed consider it “basically normal”, and this percentage means an increase of 13.2 percentage points over the survey in the previous year. The combined percentage of those considering it “relatively cool” and “too cool” is 29.1%, a drop of 27.5 percentage points from last year. In addition, 9.7% of enterprise executives deem it “relatively overheated”, this indicates that enterprise executives believe the national economy tends to warm up since the beginning of this year (Table 2).

Table 2 Enterprise executives’ judgement on the macro-economic situation in the past few years (%)

	Overheated	Heated	Basically normal	Relatively cool	Too cool	Hard to judge
2000	-	9.7	52.8	28.0	1.1	8.4
1999	-	--	39.6	48.1	8.5	3.8
1998	-	1.6	28.7	51.5	11.1	7.1
1997	-	--	54.0	37.3	4.6	4.1
1996	-	--	41.3	44.4	7.9	6.4
1995	2.4	22.3	25.1	36.5	4.4	9.3

Note: This table summarizes the follow-up survey data since 1995.

In this survey, three options – “Good,” “Fair” and “Poor”—are provided for the enterprise executives to judge the business situation of their own enterprises. Another three options – “Turning for the Better,” “Remain unchanged” and “Turning Worse” – are provided for them to make predictions and judgement on the future performance. The results show that those considering the present enterprise operation as “Good” are 20.6 percentage points higher than those who choose the option of “Poor,” however, it is only 7.7 percentage points higher than the survey last year. The higher the percentage points of those considering it “Good” than those considering it “Poor,” the better the enterprises’ business prospect is. In 2000, the figure in this category registered a 12.9 percentage points increase over that of last year, and this indicates that the overall business performance of Chinese enterprises has seen a further turn for the better.

In terms of enterprise categories, the enterprises with foreign investment, enterprises with investment from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, private enterprises and joint stock companies enjoy better business performance.

In terms of enterprise scale, the business performance of large enterprises is better than that of small and medium-sized enterprises.

In terms of geographical location, enterprises in the eastern regions perform better than those in the central and western regions.

In terms of the sectors of enterprises, the overall situation of enterprises in electric power, medicine, electronics, garments, transportation, electrical household appliances and textile industries is better than others.

The survey also finds that the business performance of the listed companies and the high-tech enterprises is obviously better than others. Regarding the prospects about their business performance, the high-tech enterprises, listed companies and enterprises in medicine, non-ferrous metal, garment, electronics and paper-making sectors are relatively optimistic (Table 3).

Table 3 The overall performance of enterprises (%)

	Current year				Next year
	Good	Fair	Poor	Good- poor	Better	Unchanged	Worse	Better to worse
Overall	36.6	47.4	16.0	20.6	49.0	42.3	8.7	40.3
SOEs	29.3	49.9	20.8	8.5	44.3	43.9	11.8	32.5
Of which: Large	35.9	48.4	15.7	20.2	49.4	42.3	8.3	41.1
Medium	28.7	48.8	22.5	6.2	43.3	45.4	11.3	32.0
Small	18.9	54.8	26.3	-7.4	36.8	43.4	19.8	17.0
Collective enterprises	30.8	54.6	14.6	16.2	45.7	47.2	7.1	38.6
Private enterprises	47.2	43.6	9.2	38.0	64.4	32.8	2.8	61.6
Shareholding enterprises	38.6	47.0	14.4	24.2	47.0	44.3	8.7	38.3
Shareholding limited companies	46.5	41.2	12.3	34.2	55.0	37.9	7.1	47.9
Limited liability companies	39.4	47.1	13.5	25.9	52.2	41.0	6.8	45.4
Enterprises funded by foreign, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan investors	51.5	38.8	9.7	41.8	51.8	42.0	6.2	45.6
Large enterprises	43.3	43.6	13.1	30.2	53.0	40.1	6.9	46.1
Of which: SOEs	35.9	48.4	15.7	20.2	49.4	42.3	8.3	41.1
Non-state firms	51.5	38.3	10.2	41.3	57.0	37.7	5.3	51.7
Medium enterprises	37.2	46.2	16.6	20.6	49.4	42.3	8.3	41.1
Small firms enterprises	29.1	53.3	17.6	11.5	44.3	44.4	11.3	33.0
Enterprises in eastern region	41.3	46.7	12.0	29.3	49.1	44.3	6.6	42.5
Enterprises in central region	32.2	48.9	18.9	13.3	48.3	40.1	11.6	36.7
Enterprises in western region	30.4	47.5	22.1	8.3	49.7	39.9	10.4	39.3
Agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry & fisheries	28.8	48.6	22.6	6.2	47.4	38.9	13.7	33.7
Manufacturing	36.6	47.2	16.2	20.4	50.9	41.1	8.0	42.9
Electric power, gas & water supply	46.6	45.6	7.8	38.8	51.8	41.4	6.8	45.0
Construction	28.0	51.9	20.1	7.9	42.4	48.4	9.2	33.2
Transportation, warehousing, posts & telecom	44.6	45.1	10.3	34.3	51.5	41.5	7.0	44.5
Wholesale, retail, trade & catering	34.8	48.6	16.6	18.2	42.6	45.6	11.8	30.8
Real estate	39.0	46.4	14.6	24.4	51.7	40.8	7.5	44.2
Food & beverage	33.2	47.3	19.5	13.7	52.4	36.8	10.8	41.6
Textile	43.2	44.0	12.8	30.4	49.4	45.4	5.2	44.2
Garment & other fiber products	46.9	43.7	9.4	37.5	55.2	41.7	3.1	52.1
Paper-making & paper products	42.2	44.5	13.3	28.9	57.1	36.4	6.5	50.6
Oil refining & coking	39.5	41.9	18.6	20.9	57.1	23.9	19.0	38.1
Chemical materials & chemicals	31.4	43.7	24.9	6.5	46.3	38.7	15.0	31.3
Pharmaceutical industry	47.2	44.2	8.6	38.6	59.9	33.9	6.2	53.7
Chemical fibers	28.1	68.8	3.1	25.0	46.9	43.7	9.4	37.5
Rubber	25.6	55.8	18.6	7.0	48.8	44.2	7.0	41.8
Plastic product	33.7	48.9	17.4	16.3	46.5	45.4	8.1	38.4
Non-metal ore products	29.8	53.0	17.2	12.6	47.3	44.0	8.7	38.6
Black metal smelting & mangling	39.5	46.5	14.0	25.5	47.0	44.6	8.4	38.6
Smelting & mangling of non-ferrous metals	36.4	49.6	14.0	22.4	59.4	34.0	6.6	52.8
Metal product	31.3	55.0	13.7	17.6	48.1	47.2	4.7	43.4
General machinery manufacturing	27.3	49.5	23.2	4.1	42.6	46.0	11.4	31.2
Special equipment manufacturing	34.6	50.6	14.8	19.8	54.7	38.5	6.8	47.9
Manufacturing of transport equipment	35.1	49.3	15.6	19.5	55.2	37.7	7.1	48.1
Manufacturing of electric machinery & equipment	46.8	38.8	14.4	32.4	43.5	48.2	8.3	35.2
Manufacturing of electronics & communication equipment	47.8	42.0	10.2	37.6	57.3	37.0	5.7	51.6
Manufacturing of apparatus, instrument & office machinery	29.4	43.1	27.5	1.9	52.0	42.0	6.0	46.0
High-tech firms	47.7	42.8	9.5	38.2	59.3	36.9	3.8	55.5
Township & village firms	44.7	43.9	11.4	33.3	52.2	43.7	4.1	48.1
Listed companies	55.9	35.5	8.6	47.3	55.9	38.8	5.3	50.6
State holding companies	34.2	49.3	16.5	17.7	48.9	40.9	10.2	38.7
Enterprise groups	39.6	46.1	14.3	25.3	53.4	39.6	7.0	46.4
IT firms	39.3	51.3	9.4	29.9	54.4	39.5	6.1	48.3
Foreign trade enterprises	40.3	47.1	12.6	27.7	52.7	39.4	7.9	44.8

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