Reforming China's Coal Industry

Abstract

In 1949 the Chinese adopted, almost in total, the former Soviet Union's system of central or command planning. Thirty years later, in 1979, the country embarked on a major economic reform programme aimed largely at correcting problems caused by central planning. The government now sought to create an economic system which would combine the best characteristics of socialist and market economies. Most analysts would agree that the non-grain agricultural and consumer goods sectors have been fully marketized, and quite successfully so, but that the economic reform of the state industrial sector has lagged far behind. Raising the profits and output and productivity levels of the state enterprises has proved extremely difficult, and the government has been reluctant to allow the unrestricted operation of market forces.