According to the paper, target units of the survey will include all types of institutions and enterprises except for farmers and the self-employed. Joint ventures, co-operative and foreign-funded enterprises are to be included, said the paper.

"The survey, as important as the census, will help the government gain awareness of the country's basic situation," Lin Xianyu, vice-director of the National Bureau of Statistics, was quoted as saying.

Information collected by the survey will include the form, economic constitution, structure and resource disposition of institutions and enterprises, based on which a relevant database shared by governments at all levels is to be set up.

This new survey will also help update the country's existing data collected in 1996 and raise China's standardization prospects, in said.

It is the responsibility of every institution and enterprise to provide true information and co-operate fully, he added.

(People's Daily December 29, 2001)