The economic importance of the public enterprises has been established on the basis of the following criteria: Own capital, personnel employed, gross added value and various factors giving rise to appreciation.This survey is of a purely preliminary nature, since, in actual fact, given the present situation of the published data, it has not so far been possible to arrive at more precise figures, taking enterprise by enterprise according to a systematic plan.Moreover, it would have been desirable to fill out the above‐mentioned criteria by data concerning turnover and investment, As the data collected in the course of this study are so extremely fragmentary, we have been obliged to exclude any statement concerning these two factor