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Restructuring Revitalizes Traditional Industries
China's efforts to restructure the industrial sector have proved effective as most of its long- plagued traditional industries have emerged from debt and are now earning profit.
The Tenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (2001-2005), which will be passed by the ongoing Fourth Session of the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC), put economic restructuring high on the agenda.
Experts noted that the speed-up of restructuring in the traditional sector had laid a solid foundation for China to "implement a strategic restructuring" in the new century.
Related government departments have attached importance to the issue. Sheng Huaren, former minister in charge of the State Economic and Trade Commission, acknowledged the importance of restructuring when proclaiming China's success in turning around most of its state-owned enterprises in three years.
China started to control the output of its traditional sectors like textile and metallurgy in early 1990s. But for a period, governmental measures didn't bring expected results due to the serious redundant productivity and heavy stockpile.
However, things began to change in 1998, when China took a big step forward in reducing output, eliminating redundant productivity and phasing out outdated equipment in six key industries, including textiles, metallurgy, sugar, petrochemicals, building materials and coal.
The textile sector, which had been in the red for six consecutive years, started to make profit in 1999. From 1998 to 2000, a total of 9.4 million outdated cotton spindles were eliminated and 1.4 million employees were laid off. The sector's annual profit shot up to 6.7 billion yuan last year, up from only 900 million yuan in 1999.
The metallurgical sector's annual profit plunged from 29.4 billion yuan in 1993 to 3 billion yuan in 1999. However, steel prices began to pick up after the country set targets to control output in 2000. The whole sector registered a net profit of 13 billion yuan last year.
In the sugar sector, 100-plus sugar-producing factories and 14 saccharin-producing plants were shut down during the same period. As a result, the sugar price began to rise and the industry earned a profit of 500 million yuan in 2000.
Similar measures were also taken in the petrochemical, coal and building materials sectors, which all saw a significant rise in profits.
Meanwhile, laid-off workers resulted from the restructuring have been well resettled in other sectors, according to an official with the State Economic and Trade Commission.
"What we have made is only periodic achievement, there are still arduous tasks lying ahead," said Shi Wanpeng, a senior official in charge of restructuring with the commission.
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