Number of words: 113

In the earliest days of China’s economic reforms, entrepreneurship was viewed as a highly risky,even illegal undertaking. Memories then were fresh of those imprisoned or even executed during the Cultural Revolution for carrying out commercial activities.

From 1978, the establishment of a “household contract responsibility system” allowed farmers to sell surplus crops on the open market. The first embers of private business started to grow with the township and village enterprises (TVEs). The TVEs were nominally state-controlled but in effect privately run rural enterprises. The spark was lit for a rapid expansion of private sector employment

in China.

Excerpted from page 54-55 of ‘Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma built’ by Duncan Clark