1952-7+First+Five+Year+Plan


 * FIRST FIVE YEAR PLAN 1952-1957**

__ Mao’s Aims for the Chinese Industry __ __ The First Five-Year Plan 1952-6555 __ __ The Plan’s Scale of Success __
 * Mao’s early attempts to modernize the Chinese economy carried the stamp of Soviet Influence
 * Impressed by apparent success of Stalin’s Five-Year Plans
 * Mao wanted PRC to build on the same model
 * 1952, China’s first Five year pan introduced and develop the state-directed growth of heavy industry
 * Partial basis already existed under Chiang’s rule when he established the National Resources Committee
 * Large number of NRC managers and over 200,000 of its workforce had stayed on in China after 1949
 * Between 1949-1957, migration from countryside to towns nearly doubled the urban population from 57 million to 100 million
 * Thus PRC began its economic reforms when it had a large potential workforce and considerable industrial expertise
 * In first two years, it brought under control the inflation
 * Rate of 1000 per cent in 1949, inflation dropped to manageable 15 percent by 1951
 * This was achieved by:
 * Slashing public expenditure
 * Raising tax rates on urban dwellers
 * Replacing Old Chinese dollar with new currency
 * Areas targeted for increased production were coal, steel and petrochemicals
 * Attention was also to be given to development of Chinese automobile and transport industry
 * China’s economic growth rate of nearly nine percent between 1952 and 1957 compared favourably with that of USSR in 1930s
 * Sino-Soviet Agreement of 1950, USSR agreed to provide China with economic assistance, but bargain was weighted very much in favor of the USSR
 * Aid had to be paid with commercial concessions
 * PRC required to send substantial portion of its bullion reserves to the USSR
 * 10,000 USSR economic advisers came at price
 * Lynch: "Chinese found out they had been exploited rather than aided"