A Study On Reform Of Salt Monopoly System In China

In the early 1990 s,in order to carry out salt iodization program,our government put salt market entrance under surveillance,and established Salt Monopoly,which has the features of government's management,plans control and business monopolies.With the deepening of the reform and opening up,it is becoming more and more obvious that Salt Monopoly is incongruous with market economy.As a result,a series of issues and controversies has been brought up.So there is absolutely a need for system reform.On one hand,through the analysis of Salt Monopoly's impact on industrial,macro and micro efficiency in resource allocation,this paper reveals the system's inherent defects and negative impacts,including salt industry enterprises restricted in productivity and scale,low industrial concentration,low technique content,lack of international competitiveness,power rent-seeking,and industrial inefficiency.As a result,overall social welfare and consumer welfare are damaged,and the development of the salt market is hindered as well.On the other hand,through the analysis of Salt Monopoly's implementation effect,it turns out that the system leads to high salt prices,the proliferation of private salt production and corruption,salt market disorder,enormous regulatory costs,and public health and safety crisis.Based on the above analysis,this paper challenges its necessity and legitimacy.In spite of that Salt Monopoly has gone through a number of reforms to solve these issues.However,those reforms were not thorough.For instance,the latest reform initiated in January 2007 did not break the system completely.It's still very hard for the salt market to realize market-oriented management.By analyzing the various reforms experience of domestic Salt Monopoly system,and absorbing successful practice of overseas countries like US,Japan,and India,the writer of this paper proposes to deepen Salt system reform with the measures of breaking the Salt Monopoly system,strengthening market supervision,carrying out market-oriented reforms and implementing anti-monopoly legislation and regulations.The writer hopes that these suggestions are useful for further deepening reform of Salt Monopoly and for the healthy development of salt industry and salt market.