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Now Long and other planners report to Mayor Xiao Yang, 55, a wiry engineer and former vice mayor of Peking who has gained a national reputation as a "city doctor." Says Xiao: "I hope to play that role here. Our population may be large, but unfortunately our economy is not. To make our economy compatible with size is the most serious problem we face." Hopes for improvement focus on developing what Xiao describes as "a comparatively high level of management." Chongqing plants, he believes, should be able to increase exports and thereby provide hard currency to finance such projects as improved power and water-purification systems. That should in turn attract foreign investment.
Chongqing's factories are being allowed to turn out consumer products along with staples ordered by the government. The 98-year-old Jianshe Machine Tool Works, for example, produces Yamaha motorcycles as well as rifles. The reforms are stimulating competition. Jianshe's Yamahas are up against Hondas assembled in another Chongqing plant. Says Jianshe Plant Manager Chen Zisheng: "The competition is good. It makes us compete on quality, and that is important now."
Freed from the inefficiencies of political supervision, managers are allowed to distribute more bonuses to their workers, although some excesses in the practice have been criticized recently by Peking. With fewer agencies of the national government to report to, the city government has been able to coordinate and streamline industrial operations. Chongqing Iron and Steel Plant No. 3, for instance, manufactures rolled sheet steel for the Post and Telecommunications Equipment Factory, three miles away. Under the old system, the material had to be shipped to a central government warehouse 150 miles away in the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu, and was then transported back to Chongqing. Ending such practices has helped increase industrial output and raise revenues by 25%.
Xiao has plenty of problems to tend to in Chongqing . For one thing, the city is woefully short of transportation. Says Chen Zhihui, the municipal planning commission's vice president: "There are not enough trucks, cars, trains or taxis. We have to plan to import more." Hotel space is insufficient, and air service is inadequate. Chongqing's airport lies in a valley that is fogbound so frequently in winter that one of every three flights must be canceled.
Still, the Chongqing experiment appears to be working. Prosperity is evident both in the factories and the city at large. Indeed, some ordinary residents have become quite wealthy. Kang Gomin, 36, operates two outdoor noodle shops at a market north of the Jialing River, where 1,300 farmers sell their produce. Says Kang: "I got the idea to open a restaurant when I realized that the people who bring their goods here cannot go back to their houses to eat their meals." When his first shop began to prosper, he opened a second.