Dual-track pricing spreads across commodities and enterprise inputs

Deng visited Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Xiamen, signaling political backing for the SEZ experiments. The visits helped make the coast a showcase for reform and foreign investment; the image of successful...

The State Council designated 14 coastal port cities for broader foreign trade and investment. The policy extended preferential opening beyond the original SEZs and deepened links to East Asian...

Following the 1984 decision, state firms gained greater discretion over output, investment, hiring and retained profits, while remaining publicly owned. The move sought productivity and fiscal...

The decision declared that a planned commodity economy was compatible with socialism and made urban reform a central priority. It gave state enterprises more autonomy, expanded markets and reframed...

Rural industry grew rapidly under local collective and township arrangements, absorbing labor and using household savings and local state support. TVEs offered an alternative to migration into...

The central government opened the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and southern Fujian triangle as economic zones. This widened access to foreign capital and technology while channeling...

Agricultural procurement was reorganized so that more products could be traded through negotiated contracts and markets. Farmers gained more choice and price responsiveness, while grain and...

Urban reforms increasingly linked pay and staffing to enterprise performance, replacing parts of the job assignment system with contracts and bonuses. They aimed to improve incentives but began to...

The National People’s Congress adopted the Law on Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprises, extending the legal forms available to overseas investors. Chinese authorities sought capital, technology and export...

Contract labor expanded for newly hired workers, while many incumbent employees retained permanent status. The dual arrangement allowed enterprises to test flexible hiring without confronting the...