SomeTitle

cite evidence that they were private operations ‘in all but name’,

exploiting dirt-cheap rural or migrant labour –– particularly young

women –– and operating outside of all forms of regulation. The

TVEs often paid dismally low wages and o

ffered no benefits and

no legal protections. But some TVEs provided limited welfare and

pension bene

fits as well as legal protections. In the chaos of transi-

tion, all manner of di

fferences emerged, and these frequently had

marked local and regional manifestations.

11

During the 1980s it became clear that most of China’s phenom-

enal growth rate was being powered from outside the SOE sector.

In the revolutionary period the SOEs provided job security and

social protections for their workforces. But in 1983 SOEs were

allowed to hire ‘contract workers’ with no social protections and

limited tenure.

12

 They were also granted greater managerial auton-

omy from state ownership. Managers could retain a certain propor-

tion of their pro

fits and sell any surplus they produced over their

targets at free market prices. The latter were much higher than the

o

fficial prices, thus setting up an awkward and, it turned out,

short-lived dual pricing system. In spite of these incentives, the

SOEs did not 

flourish. Many of them fell into debt and had to be

supported either by the central government or by the state-owned

banks, which were encouraged to lend to them on favourable

terms. This later posed serious problems for the banks as the vol-

ume of non-performing loans to the SOEs grew exponentially.

Pressure for further reform of the SOE sector mounted. In 1993,

therefore, the state decided ‘to turn targeted large and medium

state enterprises into limited liability or shareholding companies’.

The former would have ‘two to 

fifty shareholders’ while the latter

would have ‘more than 

fifty shareholders and could offer public

issues’. A year later a far more extensive programme of corporati-

zation was announced: all but the most important of the SOEs

were to be converted into ‘share-based co-operatives’ in which all

employees had the nominal right to purchase shares. Further

waves of privatization/conversion of the SOEs occurred in the late

1990s so that, by 2002, SOEs accounted for only 14 per cent of

total manufacturing employment relative to the 40 per cent share

they had held in 1990. The most recent step has been to open both

the TVEs and the SOEs to full foreign ownership.

13

tải về 190.05 Kb.

Chia sẻ với bạn bè của bạn: