New NBS census data confirms growing importance of China’s service sector

The results from the census, which was conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2018 and shows the situation at the end of last year, were released last month. The previous census was conducted in 2013. Over the following five years, the number of entities (mainly corporations) operating in the industrial or service sectors doubled to nearly 22 million. The number of employees rose by 7.6 % to 383 million. The survey did not cover the agriculture sector.

About 18.6 million of the organisations surveyed were corporations, up from 8.2 million in the 2013 census. Of the 18.3 million domestic firms in this group, 72,000 were state-owned enterprises (113,000 in 2013). The census found 103,000 foreign firms (106,000 in 2013) and 119,000 (97,000) firms from Hong Kong, Macao or Taiwan. The census also looked at 1.1 million state institutions, 305,000 social organisations and 1.8 million other legal entities.

38 % of the 383 million persons employed in the industrial and service branches were women. The number of industrial employees declined by 20 million from 2013 (down 10 %), while the number of employees in service branches rose by 47 million (up 29 %). The number of self-employed units rose to 63 million (33 million in 2013) and they employed 149 million persons (90 million in 2013), of which 46 % were women.

The census data have been used, among other things, to update last year’s nominal GDP estimate, which was boosted 2.1 % to 91.93 trillion yuan (13.9 trillion dollars). The value of services output was adjusted up by 4.3 %, with the service sector accounting for 53.3 % of GDP and the industrial sector 39.7 %. Revised real GDP figures have yet to be released.

Number of firms and employees by branch in 2018

Sources: NBS and BOFIT. *Corporations and other legal entities.