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Lawmakers Check Up on Law on Rural Industries in Eastern Province
A group of legislators from the National People's Congress (NPC) are spending a week in eastern Zhejiang Province to see first-hand how well the Law on Township Enterprises is working.
The lawmakers, led by Yang Zhenhuai, a member of the NPC Standing Committee and vice-chairman of the NPC committee of agriculture and rural affairs, want to know if the operations of village-based industries have indeed been standardized and if the sector is developing in a healthy way.
It is the first such group sent by the NPC Standing Committee to review the enforcement of the law since it was put into effect on January 1, 1997.
Deputy governor Zhang Mengjin today briefed the group on the implementation of the law in Zhejiang, and also explained his position on the revision of the law.
The province has 1.03 million township companies, with fixed assets totaling 497.7 billion yuan. They employ 8.13 million, or 39 percent of the province's rural labor force.
In 1998, rural enterprises in Zhejiang led the country in totals for gross product, sales, profits and taxes. Rural industries contributed 84 percent of the province's entire industrial economy and over 60 percent of the income of the province.
Local farmers get nearly 50 percent of their earnings from these enterprises. By the end of 1999, 96 percent of local township factories had been turned into joint stock companies.
Local economists here praise local township industries for their efforts to integrate the modern corporate system with their old-fashioned practices, for emphasizing the role of technology, and for stressing quality control in production.
Township enterprises have developed rapidly in the past 20 years, especially since the law was adopted three year ago.
By the end of last year, China had about 20.71 million township enterprises, with more than 127 million employees, and the rural firms accounted for almost one-third of the country's total gross domestic product for 1999.
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