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The concept of 'independent accounting units, (dulihesuan.giye) refers to industrial enterprises that function as separate accounting iltities. Statistics for industrial output or input (fixed assets, worldng capital, labor) often refer exclusively to independent accounting units, which contributed _85.8_ percent of national industrial output (including 96.1 percent in the state and 86.4 percent in the collective sector) to the 1988 gross value total [Jefferson, Rawski, and Zheng, Table 1; these data exclude village-level industry]. Industrial activity may occur within non-industrial units, as when transport companies repair their own equipment or when universities or other non-industrial entitia operaie factories whose accounts are subsumed within their owri. The output value of these 'non-independent accounting units' (feiduliheau giy is incorporated into output totals that include all industrial production (rather than only tha' of independent accounting units).

The coverage of industrial production was expanded in 1984 to include industrial enterprises managed at and below the village level (formerly descr.bed as nanaged by the production brigades of rural communes). These enterprises were previously claisified as part of agricultural rather than industrial production [Field 1988, pp. 584-585]. Recent: vubl cations have begun to retroactively incorporate this category into the industrial totals for previous years, leading to apparent inconsistency with previously published statistics (e.g. newly published labor figures for collective industry inclusive of "village-managed' enterprises are miuch larger than identically-labell **e** d mployment totals published in earlier sources not because of any change izi underlying statistics, but merely because the "village-managed" enterprises were formerly included in the farm -ector).

Industrial production statistics are valued in terms of 'current' or "constant' prices. The current price value of industrial output indicates the value of each year's output according to the market prices of that year. For th. vast majority of products that are sold in the year of productioil, output value at current prices is identical with sales revenue. From this perspective, the existence of multiple prices for individual products poses no conceptual or practical difficulty for Chinese accountants and statisticians.

Following Soviet example, China's wconomic statistics have long been cs'culated according to "constant" as well as current prices. Constant prices of 1952 were used for the period _1952-57;_ 1957 prices were in force from 1957-71; national statistics for the years 1971-81 are based on 1970 prices; and a 1980 price base has been in force since 1981. Calculations based on 'constant' or fixed prices are made by multiplying quantities of output by the relevant "constant p.ices," the latter being supplied to enterprise accountants by planning and administrau've agencies of the Chinese govemment.

It is important to note that, as economic reform leads enterprise managers to focus more closely on financial results based exclusively on current prices, the calculat<on of output value at "constant" prices becomes increasingly peripheral to enterprise objectives'. In the absence of

1. **One official** of **Chia's State Stisca Bureau commeAed ht thi hnge enhace te veracity** of **rpotd** **_data._**