PEKING, Reuter; Worsening shortages of petrol, power and credit are hampering China’s rural factories, the economy’s fastest growing sector, the China Daily said.
It said petrol shortages had left nearly half of the motor vehicles in Shanxi province idle and forced 9,300 transport vehicles and cargo ships in Anhui out of commission, it said, Power cuts during. processing. had damaged huge quantities of raw materials. One county near
Tianjin had nearly 6,000 power Cuts in the first five months of this year, it said.
Rural factories employ 70 million people, about 18 per cent of China’s total workforce, nearly all of them peasants no longer needed on the land, They operate outside the state system, buying raw materials and energy on the open market.
‘The paper said the state had imposed tighter controls on credit supplies and raw materials since last year, giving priority to state ‘owned firms,
Despite the shortages, output of rural factories grew more than 20 per cent in the first half of the year over the same period last year, more than four times faster than industry as a whole, it said.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 5, 1986
