Rural Enterprises In China

How and why did the rural enterprise sector get so big in China? This book has the answers. That sector is owned and operated by rural communities. The book explains why these enterprises have been growing so fast, and it explores the implications of their growth.

Rural enterprises have played an important role in the extraordinary success of China's economy over the last two decades. They have greatly increased off-farm employment in rural areas and brought substantially increased incomes and standards of living to many rural people. Jun Li provides a comprehensive analysis of the financing of China's rural enterprises over the reform period, and discusses the key aspects of rural enterprise development in China, including the growth of rural enterprises and enterprise-level behaviour, the role of state policy, rural financial institutions and local government. Brings new and challenging analysis to the current debate on the Chinese financial system and the financing of SMEs.

This book reports the findings of two field studies conducted between 1993 and 2001 in seven townships and six provinces in China. The authors describe the process of rural urbanization and its related economic, social, and political changes by focusing mainly on the zhen (town), in addition to administrative offices and companies involved in the local economy, and village committees. The authors show that the social changes resulting from China's economic reforms are occurring mainly from below, and that this process is also resulting in a weakening of the economic and political dominance of the central government. Other changes discussed in this study include the development of new ownership structures and the increasing dominance of the private sector; a shift in the functions of administrative offices as the bureaucracy becomes increasingly business oriented; the rise of a new local elite; a rebirth of traditional social structures (clans, local associations); and the emergence of new interest groups and institutions to represent their needs.

Contains 12 essays which describe case studies of ten industries in two counties of eastern Shandong and southern Jiangsu.

The aim of this volume is to understand the forces and processes in local and rural society in China, seeing the local levels of government in rural areas (villages, townships, and towns) as important managers of people and resources and as deeply involved in business and enterprise.

This collection of papers presented at an international conference in 1987 provides a comprehensive analysis of China's booming rural non-state industrial sector, both collective and private.