Technical note
Identifying foreign firms and South African multinational enterprises: CIT-IRP5 panel v4.0
January 2021
The identification of foreign firms and South African multinational enterprises (MNEs)
in the CIT-IRP5 panel has proved to be a challenge for many researchers. The CIT-IRP5 panel
contains variables indicating different thresholds that determine foreign ownership. The dataset
also has variables that researchers can use to identify South African MNEs. Using the approaches
employed by researchers who have attempted to identify foreign firms and South African MNEs
in the data, four foreign firms and MNE indicators have been added to the CIT-IRP5 panel v4.0.
This technical note documents the approach followed in the creation of each indicator. This note
also highlights the possible company classifications in the data and fields on the ITR14 form that
can be used to identify these classifications.