{"id":122199,"date":"2011-07-05T22:44:31","date_gmt":"2011-07-06T05:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=122199"},"modified":"2011-07-05T22:44:33","modified_gmt":"2011-07-06T05:44:33","slug":"economist-chinas-market-oriented-reforms-in-retreat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2011\/07\/economist-chinas-market-oriented-reforms-in-retreat\/","title":{"rendered":"Economist: China’s Market-Oriented Reforms in Retreat"},"content":{"rendered":"
Last week at Caixin Online, Huang Yiping cited tennis star Li Na’s Grand Slam success as a model for reinvigorating financial reform<\/a>. Now Wu Jinglian, an economist at the Development and Research Center at the State Council, laments market reforms’ loss of momentum since 2000<\/a><\/strong> in the face of resurgent interference by government bodies:<\/p>\n Although the state economy no longer contributes a major portion to gross domestic product, it maintains a monopoly in sectors like petroleum, telecoms<\/a>, railways and finance, Wu said in a keynote speech in the opening ceremony of a global conference sponsored by the International Economic Association.<\/p>\n Governments at various levels also have a huge hold over major economic resources such as land and capital, said Wu, who serves as a researcher of the<\/p>\n China still lacks a legal foundation that is indispensable for a modern market economy. Government officials intervene in the market at their will through administrative means, said Wu.<\/p>\n China’s market forces gained vigor when the pricing of goods was liberalized in the early 1990s and millions of township enterprises were privatized at the turn of the last century, said Wu.<\/p>\n Entering the 2000s, however, the reform of state-owned enterprises suffered a setback, and SOEs have inhabited an increasingly assertive role in the market at the expense of private businesses. “The government has acted more intrusively in the name of macro-economic regulation,” said Wu.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n