This research was carried out in China between December 2011 and February 2013. Data was collected from 2,700 privately-owned and 148 state-owned firms. The objective of Enterprise Surveys is to obtain feedback from businesses on the state of the private sector as well as to help in building a panel of enterprise data that will make it possible to track changes in the business environment over time, thus allowing, for example, impact assessments of reforms. Through interviews with firms in the manufacturing and services sectors, the survey assesses the constraints to private sector growth and creates statistically significant business environment indicators that are comparable across countries. Usually Enterprise Surveys focus only on private companies, but in China, a special sample of fully state-owned establishments was included as this is an important part of the economy. Data on 148 state-owned enterprises is provided separately from the data of 2,700 private sector firms. To maintain comparability of the China Enterprise Surveys to surveys conducted in other countries, only the dataset of privately sector firms should be used.
