The Economic Performance of China's State-owned Industrial Enterprises

The much-publicized declining financial performance of China's state-owned enterprises (SOIEs) is generally assumed to be evidence of their worsening economic efficiency. However in this paper we show that during 1980-1996, total factor productivity actually increased at an average annual rate of 1.90% and was responsible for 41% of the rise in SOIE output. The decline in financial performance can be attributed to their terms of trade deteriorating at an average annual rate of 3.19% due to increased competition and price reform. Numerous other factors, apart from economic efficiency, can further explain why the level of SOIE profitability has lagged behind non-state-owned industrial enterprises. While these conclusions do not imply that SOIEs have become efficient by international standards, they do suggest that their economic performance was significantly better than is generally claimed. They also confirm the need to evaluate economic performance directly, using criteria appropriate to the Chinese context.