Plan Indices of Socialist Enterprises (Production Associations), plan assignments determining the main aspects of their activity. A system of indices is used to evaluate the effectiveness and quality of the work done by collectives and to harmonise their interests with those of society as a whole. According to the procedure existing in the USSR, the following indices and economic standards (broken down into years) are to be approved in five-year economic and social development plans: in production—the growth of rated net product, and in certain industries the increase in commodity output in comparable prices, production of staple goods in kind, including export items, the growth of the production of quality products or other index of the quality of output established for a given industry; in labour and social development—increased labour productivity calculated in rated product or another index more precisely reflecting the changes in labour expenditure in individual industries, and also the wage rate per rouble of output according to the index applied for planning labour productivity; in individual branches—the total wage fund, the limit on the number of industrial and office workers, assignments for cutting down the manual work force, standards for the formation of material incentives funds, social and cultural measures and housing construction; in finance—the total profit, and in individual branches—the reduced cost price (state budgetary receipts and allocations are also approved for industries in which overall profit distribution rates have been established); in capital construction—the putting into operation of fixed assets, production capacities and projects, in particular capacity increases as a result of technical re-equipment and reconstruction of operating enterprises, limits of state capital investment and building and assembly, including expenses on technical re-equipment and the reconstruction of operating enterprises, and rates for the formation of the production development fund. In the introduction of new technology the following is to be approved: the basic assignments in the implementation of scientific and technical programmes, the working out, development and introduction of new and highly effective technological processes and new types of product, including those in the newly commissioned enterprises and projects, the basic indices of the technical level of production and key types of product, the economic effect of scientific and technical measures, standards for the formation of a single fund for scientific and technological development (for ministries); in material and technical supply—the volume of deliveries of the basic types of material and technical resources necessary for fulfilling the five-year plan, assignment for the average lowering of norms for expenditures of the key material resources. Beginning with the eleventh five-year plan period (1981-1985), the same assignments will be given to enterprises (associations) in the annual economic and social development plans, which will concretise and in some cases specify the assignments set for the year concerned. In certain instances, ministries present enterprises (associations) with estimated indices alongside approved indices. The following indices are estimated: the amount of marketable output to be manufactured by enterprises and associations for which the increased production of net product has been set; the total wage fund of enterprises and associations for which the wage rate per rouble of output has been set; the total of profits of those enterprises for which assignments for cost price reduction have been set. These indices approved in a centralised way are supplemented by indices worked out by the enterprises and associations themselves. They are used by planning and economic bodies as estimated indices in compiling economic and social development plans. Among the estimated indices are: economised fixed production assets, material expenditures, the labour remuneration fund, expenditure per rouble of marketable or gross output, output-asset ratio in commodity or gross product, net output per rouble of expenditure, and the volume of building and assembly done by one’s own resources. To provide 273 economic incentives to enterprises ( associations), some of the approved indices are made fund-forming, i. e., used to establish a quantitative dependence between the degree to which a plan is fulfilled (or the level of production achieved) and the size of the economic incentives funds. The system of plan indices is improved in the USSR in order to give them a greater impact on the technical level of production and product quality, on the growth rates of labour productivity and the economical use of material, labour and financial resources.