Fifth Economic Census Shows Rise in Businesses and Revenue

The census was conducted from January to April 2024, targeting all legal entities and organizations as well as private businesses owned by individuals that were engaged in secondary or tertiary industries in China before the end of 2023.　

By the end of 2023, the census showed that China was home to 33.27 million legal units engaged in secondary or tertiary industries, 11.481 million or 52.7 percent more than at the end of 2018 when the fourth economic census was launched. China also saw the number of private businesses owned by individuals rise by 39.8 percent to nearly 88 million.　

The top three industries are wholesale and retailing (30.6 percent), renting and commercial services (13.8 percent) and manufacturing (12.2 percent).　

The secondary and tertiary industries employed 428.98 million people at the end of 2023, 11.9 percent more than that in 2018. Among them, women accounted for 39.74 percent of the total. Meanwhile, 179.56 million people worked in private businesses, 46.89 percent of whom were women.　

There were 96,000 enterprises with an annual revenue of 20 million yuan (US$2.9m) or above engaged in strategic new industries in China at the end of 2023. These included new-generation information, high-end manufacturing, new materials, new energy, environmental protection and aerospace, taking up 19.5 percent of China’s total number of enterprises with an annual revenue of 20 million yuan (US$2.9m) or above. China possesses about 2.9 million legal units in core digital economic sectors, with nearly 36.16 million people working in them. These enterprises received a combined operating revenue of 48.4 trillion yuan (US$6.9t) in 2023.　

In terms of geographic distribution, 53.9 percent of the units were in eastern China, 2 percent down on the 2018 figures. There was growth in other regions, with Central China seeing an increase of 1.4 percent, and western China an increase of 0.6 percent, accounting for 22 percent and 19.2 percent of the total.　

South China’s Guangdong Province and East China’s Jiangsu and Shandong provinces ranked the top three regions with the biggest number of legal units engaged in secondary and tertiary industries.　

Altogether, businesses engaged in secondary and tertiary industries had cumulative assets of 1,439.1 trillion yuan (US$205.6t), 57.4 percent more than at the end of 2018, while they bore a total debt of 975.4 trillion yuan (US$139.3t). In 2023 alone, they received combined operation revenue of 442.6 trillion yuan (US$63.2t), 50.2 percent more than in 2018.　

Based on data from the fifth economic census, the NBS revised its GDP figures for 2023, increasing them by 2.7 percent to 129.43 trillion yuan (US$18.5t).　

Kang Yi, NBS director and deputy head of the State Council’s leadership team for the fifth economic census, said at a press conference on December 26 that the survey aimed to get a clear idea about the scale, pattern and operation of China’s secondary and tertiary industries.　

The data showed that China’s economic development, compared to that in 2018, has a more solid basis, better structure and higher potential, as well as stronger security and sustainability. Kang said that the economic census is helpful for the government to improve macroeconomic governance and engage in systematic long-term planning.