Қытай ауылдық кәсіпорындарының даму тарихы

Chinese local public businesses

Township and Village Enterprises (TVEs, ) are market oriented public enterprises under the purview of local governments based in townships and villages in China.

Although Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping was reported to have said that TVEs "appear(ed) out of nowhere" in 1987, the industrial development in rural China could be traced back to as early as 1950s. During this period, rural enterprises, often with names "commune and brigade enterprises" and of neglectable size, served as a supplement to those state owned enterprises (SOE), which mainly focused on heavy industrial sectors, and were established by the people's communes and bridges to support agricultural production and to produce rural social products for local and domestic needs. The political turmoil between late 1950s and early 1960s, like the Great Leap Forward, at one time halted the development of rural enterprises and some were suspended. Nevertheless, encouraged by the Chinese government to produce rural social goods, the enthusiasm of rural enterprises increased again in 1965. According to official records, the number of rural enterprise was about 122,000 in 1965, and quickly increased to 447,000 in 1970. During this period, however, rural enterprises were restricted to certain industrial and agricultural sections, including the production of iron, steel, cement, chemical fertilizer, hydroelectric power, and farm tools.

The hybrid status of TVEs as neither state owned nor privately owned provided significant advantages within the reforming economy of China. Because they were not state owned, TVEs were not restrained by state planning policies or price control. The political institutional environment favored these “public” enterprises during the early years of reform, since private businesses faced severe restrictions and discrimination in terms of resources and regulations. Also, the fiscal decentralization of the early 1980s gave greater decision making power to local governments and linked fiscal revenue to the career potential of local officials, creating strong incentives for them to promote these enterprises. The TVEs moved in to take advantage of the gaps left in the market by the State Owned Enterprises to produce colorful elastic bands, ID card holders, etc. The TVEs benefited from first mover advantage as there was no competition in the early stages from private firms due to restrictions on the markets. The pent up demand in China for a host of products provided ample profit making opportunities for enterprises operating at this early juncture. Moreover, TVEs were helped by massive loans from the state banking system. The TVE sector experienced dramatic changes in 1995 1996 (Huang, 2008). Official hostility toward Chinese entrepreneurship during the period of Jiang Zemin's administration caused many to go out of business, with some estimates suggesting that about 30 percent have gone bankrupt. In addition, there has been a massive trend toward privatization. After the mid 1990s, TVEs were forced to restructure substantially. With increased market integration and competition, official discrimination against TVEs, and official preference for foreign owned enterprises, TVEs lost their competitive position. Further, the end of directional liberalism in China encouraged local officials to expropriate the TVEs. As competition intensified and credit became harder to obtain, the collectively owned TVE sector grew in comparison to the privately owned TVEs. Rural industries today are more tied to their local government and community and have taken on new forms and roles (Huang, 2008). One of the most striking developments has been the rise of “industrial clusters” of small firms both competing with one another and cooperating to form a relatively complete industrial chain. Industrial clusters have also emerged in places such as Brazil and Italy.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), TVEs in China are responsible for more than 10 billion metric tons of industrial waste water, which is more than half of the total. Worse still, this industrial wastewater directly discharges into the water resource without any treatment and control. Polluted water damaged the environment, causing 10 to 20 million hectares of polluted land by 2001. Furthermore, reports showed that artisanal mines, which are mostly TVEs, leak hundreds of tonnes of mercury annually. In the meantime, as many TVEs were built near population dense areas, this pollution also threatened the population's health nearby. In general, the analysis found that people living near TVEs have a more significant rate of diseases and a shorter lifetime; the unregulated activities made Chinese rural areas pay a huge price for environmental damage.

In response to the climate crisis brought by the TVEs, the government passed a regulation in 1979 that "The transfer of products and production involving toxic and hazardous substances to rural areas is prohibited unless accompanied by the transfer of effective pollution control equipment." The result was unsatisfactory: many harmful activities still existed and ignored the regulation. Moreover, TVEs were based on old and polluted types of equipment that were different from urban spaces, so it was hard to control the pollution due to their locations and large numbers. During the 8th five year plan, the Chinese government enhanced the policy to deal with the worsening climate crisis. Although the changes focused more on urban cities, TVEs pollution was impacted, especially wastewater.