Seventy Articles on Industry

“The Regulation of the State-Owned Industrial Enterprises Work (Draft)” was an important document formulated by the CPC Central Committee to rectify industrial enterprises and improve and strengthen enterprise management, and it was also the first general charter for the management of state-owned industrial enterprises in China.

In September 1961, in response to the problems of chaotic production order, lack of responsibility and scientific management system, serious egalitarianism problems in distribution and poor economic results in many enterprises after the "Great Leap Forward", the CPC Central Committee chaired by Deng Xiaoping and organized by Li Fuchun and Bo Yibo, formulated this draft regulation on the basis of in-depth investigations and studies so as to fully absorb the opinions of various personnel in industrial enterprises. In addition to the general provisions, the draft contains 10 chapters and 70 articles, so it was abbreviated as "Seventy Articles on Industry".

The main contents were as follows: State-owned industrial enterprises are socialist economic organizations owned by the whole people and independent production and operation units. Its fundamental tasks include completing and exceeding the state plan in an all-round way, increase social products and expand socialist accumulation; the CPC organization constitutes the core of enterprise leadership; the enterprise applies the leadership principle of unified leadership and hierarchical management; it established a responsibility system wherein the factory manager assumes responsibility under the leadership of the Party committee and the enterprise should fully implement independent accounting and strict financial management, and the relationship between the state and the enterprise to be regulated by the "five definitions" and "five guarantees" regulations. "Seventy Articles on Industry" stipulated that by the system of trade unions and workers' congresses within the State-owned enterprises (SOEs), workers are to participate in the management and administrative supervision of the enterprise. In addition, the “Articles” also made specific provisions on planning management, technical management, labor management, wages and welfare benefits, party building, so forth.

"Seventy Articles on Industry" had comprehensively summarized the experience and lessons of enterprise management since the founding of New China, especially included the experience and lessons earned since the “Great Leap Forward”, and it played a significant role in implementing of the eight-character policy of making "adjustment, consolidation, enrichment and improvement" in the national economy, restoring and establishing a normal management system and production order in SOEs, besides improved the management and technical level of them.

The various systems and guiding principles stipulated in the "Seventy Articles on Industry" Regulations, which standardized and perfected the management of state-owned enterprises in China, is still of great significance for reference, today.