Holy Cow
Dec 17-2018
During the 3rd NDF, Mrs. Ren Xingzhou, former director of the Market Research Institute of the Development Research Center of the State Council, shared two anecdotes about pricing reforms in the 1980s. In one, for two to three years in mid 1980s, her institute undertook a project to capture the theoretical prices of some products, as was the ambition of the planned economy. Many experts and researchers joined the project but after two to three years, the conclusion was that the prices were too elusive to catch. In the other, one of her superiors wished for all Chinese people to each have a pair of leather shoes. But no matter how hard he calculated, there were simply no enough cows to produce the hides. As the planned economy gave way to the market economy, China made shoes for its own people and people around the world, thanks to more cows in China and more imported hides, she said.
