The Initial Attempt Of The Shanxi Local Industrialization

Shanxi was rich in coal and iron. To the establishment of Republic,there were two railways:Zheng Tai and Jing Sui. The Government—Run Enterprises and Private Enterprises had developed. All of these had laid the foundation for the establishment of modern enterprise. However, Shanxi was relatively isolated. The railway length was limited. Using machine to engage mining and production, these enterprises were rarely, so that iron and coal were not fully developed. The production, especially the private sector, had remained mostly in the manual stage. Central Plains War worsened the economic conditions.After returning to power,Yan Xishan began to pay attention to local economic development.He recognized that only Shanxi local government had the strength and capacity to carry out the modern construction and that only Shanxi local government could establish the modern industrial enterprise by using the favorable conditions and overcome adverse conditions.Shanxi local government established the Northwest Industrial Company as one of the People’s Public Utilities. The Northwest Industrial Company went through the preparatory period, the construction period, the Head Office period and the centralized management period. It had been constantly expanding to33factories before Sino—Japanese War. The company used machines in production and the products were mostly related to the machinery industry. The enterprise had grand scale, complete system and advanced production methods, so that it had taken an important step on Shanxi industrialization road. The smoothly development of the the Northwest Industrial Company were inseperable from the Shanxi local government’s effort. We can appreciated the huge role of government from the completeness of "the Provincial10—year Construction Plan", the expanding size of the Northwest Industrial Company and the progress of the production technology to the vigorous support of government in capital, market, transport, science and technology.Northwest Industrial Company represented the highest industrial level of Shanxi. Even, some sectors and areas were in the lead in the nation. The construction of company promoted the progress of modern industrial technology in Shanxi. It provided a large number of new industrial products and began to change the traditional mode of production. It played a fundamental, guiding role in the region industrialization in Shanxi.