Re: AP : China's Communists Approve Reforms

["DiemQuynh Nguyen" <diemquynhng@hotmail.com>]

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From: bich dao <daotb@YAHOO.COM>

>China's Communists Approve Reforms
>
>By CHARLES HUTZLER Associated Press Writer
>
>BEIJING (AP) -- China's communist leadership on Wednesday endorsed stock
>issues and called for privatization in all-but-name for the sprawling
>but failing state sector in an effort to restart reforms stalled over
>the last two years.
>
>Ending its annual fall meeting, the Communist Party's policy-setting
>Central Committee backed solidly capitalist remedies for all state
>industries except high-technology and other strategic sectors.
>
>The prescriptions mildly advanced reforms the party endorsed at an
>extraordinary congress two years ago.  Opposition from conservatives,
>fears of unrest from rising unemployment and slowing economic growth
>stymied those measures, allowing the vast, cosseted and debt-burdened
>state sector to further wither.
>
>Amid intense politicking that continued into the four-day central
>committee meeting, President and party chief Jiang Zemin spent four
>months personally lobbying provincial politicians -- many of whom sit on
>the 336-member Central Committee -- to support renewed reforms.
>
>Bolstering the leadership, the committee appointed Vice President Hu
>Jintao vice chairman of the party commission that runs the politically
>influential military.  Hu, 56, is being groomed as the heir-apparent to
>Jiang and the promotion is seen as a necessary step in the succession.
>
>The committee, in a statement that will become a guide for government
>policy in the coming months, called enterprise reform an ``important and
>urgent task.''
>
>``Facing intense
>international competition at the turn of the century, we must increase
>the strength of our national economy and defense and of national
>cohesion,'' said the statement, released by the official Xinhua News
>Agency and read on state television.  ``No time can be lost in pushing
>forward the restructuring and development of state sector.''
>
>The committee backed experimentation to attract new capital to ailing
>industries, with particular emphasis on stock issues and
>``blended forms of economic
>ownership'' -- a euphemism for
>``privatization,'' a taboo
>among conservatives in the 61-million-member party.
>
>Committee members also gave a vote of support to embattled Premier Zhu
>Rongji, re-endorsing his pledge to lift most large and medium-sized
>enterprises out of debt in three years.
>
>In an indication of the conservatives' residual strength, the committee
>said the state would retain control of all ``important enterprises'' and
>remain dominant in vital sectors.  The statement identified only
>emerging industries and high-technology businesses outright for
>protection.
>
>The committee also called for better management, corporate-style
>governance and incentives for the generally inefficient state sector.
>
>Revamping the state sector has been the most intractable and delayed
>reform in China's 20-year attempt to replace central planning with free
>markets.  Although state industries produce less than half the value of
>goods, they employ more than half of all urban workers.  Their debts
>account for most of the nonperforming loans that have seriously weakened
>state banks.
>
>^CAP-NY-09-22-99 1141EDT

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