ABSTRACT
The economic debate at the end of the First Five-Year Plan gave birth to the basic ideas of small-scale rural industries to overcoming China's lack of capital by mobilizing manpower resources and local savings. Such a rural industry would open visible outlets for the accumulated savings of the village population, allow the use of locally mastered technology and develop a dynamic and complementary relationship between agriculture and light industry in a localized framework. From the viewpoint of employment, it mopped up a great deal of rural manpower and diminished the attraction of migration to urban areas. This chapter examines that during the Fourth Plan, China's grain production increased by about 17", or an annual average of 3 to 3.5". At a time when world increase rates in food production hovered around 2" and in the Third World even below that level, this is a very honourable performance.
