Productivity performance and priorities for the reform of China's state‐owned enterprises

This study reports on the results of a survey of 300 state‐owned, collective and foreign‐funded industrial enterprises conducted in three of China's coastal provinces; Guangdong, Fujian and Shanghai‐shi in 1993.’ Its major focus and policy relevance is to identify which of China's recent enterprise, market and ownership reforms have been most effective in improving the productivity performance of China's state owned enterprises. The study concludes that productivity growth (measured by total factor productivity) has been significantly higher for non‐state‐owned than for state‐owned enterprises and for firms located in the special economic zones of Shenzhen and Xiamen and the open city of Guangzhou than for firms in the more centrally planned Shanghai. Export‐orientated enterprises also had higher total factor productivity growth than non‐export‐orientated ones. At a lower level of significance, enterprises that controlled their own decision‐making produced a lower proportion of output for the plan, procured a higher proportion of their investment finance from loans (rather than budgetary allocations) and achieved higher total factor productivity growth. Finally, labour‐intensive industries in general had higher total factor productivity growth than did capital‐intensive ones. A number of policy conclusions may be drawn from these results.