【正文】
nt. For eign experience has also shown that many financial institutions operating in rural areas are in the form of cooperatives. Government supports the devel opment of the rural economy through some preferential policies to coopera tive financial institutions. These cooperative financial institutions still play an important role in the rural financial system. Credit cooperatives are gener ally consistent with the development of overall cooperative economic orga Page 6 62 THE CHINESE ECONOMY nization. If there is no development of cooperative economic organization but only credit cooperatives, better results cannot be achieved. Today the rural financial system of China faces a dilemma because it lacks a cooperative economy in the rural areas. In fact, there has been no actual cooperative economy in China. The agricultural cooperative movement in the early 1950s was in essence a collective movement, since property rights and identity freedom of farmers had been abolished at that time. After the household contract responsi bility system was set up and the collective economy also gradually vanished, there was no guidance for the development of a cooperative economy. Up to the present, there has been no actual cooperative economy in China. ? Rural financial system receives great interference from the government The development of the rural financial system has long been government based and thus it is hard for the rural financial system to avoid interference from the government. This deficiency greatly restricts the sound develop ment of the rural financial system. The interference of local governments, such as rural cooperation funds and rural credit cooperatives, leads to chaos. Interference from the local government in rural financial institutions in some areas has been quite If the problem is not resolved, the develop ment of the rural financial system will be restricted and hampered. Serious Lack of Rural Financial Resources A sound rural financial system must have enough resources allocated to meet the needs of overall rural economic and social development. The situation now is that the rural financial system is seriously lacking in financial re sources. Rural economic and social development does not have sufficient financial resources for the rural financial mechanism to improve the rural economy while social development is also seriously restricted. The constraints are discussed as follows: