China’s Economic Progress Reviewed

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28530, 8 March 1958, Page 11

China’s Economic Progress Reviewed

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

KUALA LUMPUR, March 7. A United Nations survey said today that mainland China had made significant economic progress but only at the cost of heavy sacrifices by workers. The survey will be presented to the annual meeting of the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East, opening here today. It devotes one chapter to what is believed to be one of the most exhaustive economic surveys of mainland China yet made. The survey admits the disability of working almost exclusively with official figures, which tend to emphasise favourable developments. According to diplomatic sources, the Nationalist China Government has protested to the E.C.A.F.E. secretariat about the inclusion of the chapter and the way the information was collected. The survey says that while capital accumulation rose by 89 per cent, between 1953 and 1956, consumption by the population in the same period rose only 33 per cent. Consumption The peasant’s average consumption was much smaller than that of an industrial worker. His consumption had increased by 13 per cent, between 1952 and 1956 while the workers’ went up 19 per cent, and this had apparently given rise to peasant discontent. The survey said the Socialist transformation of China was more or less completed in 1957. This covered the transfer of capitalist industry and commerce to combined State and private ownership, the co-operative organisation of individual handicrafts and the collectivisation of agriculture. The major problems confronting China hinged on the development of heavy industry and the mastering of inflationary pressure. During -both of the two fiveyear plans, gross industrial production was to be doubled. This was being achieved largely at the expense of the agricultural sector. • The first plan allocated to agriculture only 7.6 per cent, of the central Government’s expenditure for capital construction and 8 per cent, of total development expenditure. Crop Goals The survey said that the original goals set for crop production under the first plan were slightly exceeded for food-grains, just attained for raw cotton, tobacco and sugar cane, but not reached for other crops, partic-

ularly soya beans. In livestock production, the goals were not reached, in some cases by fairly large margins. Inflationary pressures had been countered by the rigid control of prices and the rationing of essential consumer’ goods, like food grains, edible oil and cotton cloth. Steps had been taken to siphon off excess purchasing power in the hands of peasants and workers by State procurement of agricultural surpluses at “official” prices below the free market level, wage controls and public subscription to development bonds. The extensive resources needed for development had been derived mainly from domestic resources, including taxation, profits * on State enterprises and bonds. Foreign trade had beet an im- ,j portant means of financing capital J formation. This trade had -» gravitated increasingly to the Communist bloc—33 per cent, of ? the total in 1950 to 82 per cent, in 1955. <, This had dropped to about 75 • per cent, in 1956 because of some revival in trade with Britain and i Japan and an increase in trade with a number of other countries. Exports p Three-fourths of China’s exports consisted of farm products r and one-fourth of mineral products and manufactures. Threefifths of the imports were machinery and equipment and two-fifths J raw materials for industrial and ' agricultural production and con- - sumer goods. '* The survey said that population pressure, as well as the related » problem of unemployment and . was one of - the most serious problems facing China. Its present population of e 628,000,000 was increasing at 2 o per cent, a year. , Internal migration to sparsely populated parts like the frontier provinces of Heilungkiang, and Sinkiang might give some relief, but the process was slow and costly. 660.000 people were reported to have moved from<» densely populated parts to the ~ sparsely populated provinces. - Provisions had been made in the ♦ second five-year plan for birth * control and planned childbirth.

After setting fire to an Albany. • New York, building, a man explained: “I always had bad luck » at poker there.”