Chapter 26 3. Reform, the only way out for grain bosses

The state-owned food system, which was established in 1949 and formed in 1953, has long been a coveted unit.Due to drought and flood, it has always been a popular industry for people to seek jobs.The conversion of farmers to non-farmers, the demobilization of the army, the recruitment of cadres to cadres, the distribution of universities, and all kinds of relationships have all flocked to food companies. It is precisely because of this that the personnel in the food system are growing faster and expanding more among all units. In 1952, there were 220,000 workers in the state-owned grain sector nationwide. In 1984, it reached 2.27 million. It became 4 million people again.Among them, 1 million are retired and 3 million are working.Among the employees of the grain system, only 1 million are actually engaged in grain purchase and storage, and the other 2 million "do all kinds of business".The more people, the greater the expenditure, the higher the cost, and the heavier the burden.There are 26,000 retirees in the food system in Hebei Province alone, and the annual expenditures have reached more than 200 million yuan.With such a heavy burden of personnel, how can the enterprise have vitality?

An important content of this food reform is to separate the government from enterprises, so that those engaged in policy-related business can concentrate on policy-related business, and those engaged in commercial business can seriously conduct commercial business. The two are completely separated and run in two lines , which not only ensures the effective completion of the policy business designated by the state, but also promotes the grain business enterprises to enter the market, participate in competition, and increase vitality.At the same time, the State Council also requested that personnel be reduced on the current basis, and any name additions and recruitment of workers in the food system should be stopped in order to reduce the burden on the food system.

In addition to the burden of personnel, it is the burden of hanging accounts.Now the national state-owned grain system's outstanding balance is close to the original value of all fixed assets of grain enterprises, and the outstanding balance of many enterprises even exceeds the sum of fixed assets and current assets, and enterprises are on the verge of bankruptcy or semi-bankruptcy.If the problem of unpaid accounts is not resolved quickly, grain enterprises will not be crushed and will be dragged down.For example, in Anhui Province, 2.8 billion yuan is pending, and the annual interest is more than 300 million yuan.Mianyang City, Sichuan Province has a policy deficit of more than 200 million yuan. In addition, the city's food system has more than 2,000 retired workers. It is difficult to operate, and it is at a disadvantage in the market.At present, there are more than 3,700 individual businesses engaged in food business in the city, which is equivalent to 12 times that of state-owned grain enterprises. There has been a pattern of "guerrillas" encircling the "regular army". %.If this continues, state-owned grain enterprises will lose market control.

No wonder it is said that we have to find food for the food sellers. It is quite difficult for grain companies to go from bottom to top, so naturally they have little money to build and expand warehouses.During the 40 years from 1949 to 1989, the state invested a total of 7.4 billion yuan in building warehouses, with an average of only 185 million yuan per year.In the past 10 years, the state has invested heavily in the construction of a number of warehouses, but compared with the increasing grain production and reserves year by year, it is still far from enough.Among the existing granaries, more than 50 billion kilograms of capacity were built before the 1970s. The storage capacity is limited and the standard is low. In recent years, more than 4 billion kilograms of storage capacity have been scrapped every year. For a large grain-producing country, it is a typical congenital deficiency.In the past few years, the grain companies have resolutely purchased the grain, but there is nowhere to put it, so they have to dump it in the open air, resulting in a staggering amount of spoilage and loss.

Objectively speaking, most of the current difficulties in the state-owned grain system are caused by the unsmooth grain distribution system, which we will discuss in detail in the next chapter. However, the lack of pressure to reform the state-owned grain sector is also an important reason.During the period from 1996 to 1997, the Agricultural Development Bank opened up the supply of funds to the grain sector. The original purpose was very clear, that is, not to "send IOUs" to farmers, so as to protect farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain.But when it comes to the food department, no one can get the funds, but it can get funds in the name of grain collection.Therefore, the food department not only takes it for itself, but also takes it for other systems and departments.Tighten money, no company in the world can get such treatment from banks.The market is gone, the policy premise is gone, and any constraints are gone. As a result, the grain sector has a "collective consciousness"-it is reasonable to lose money, and it is not worth the loss;

Lu Feng, a professor at the China Economic Research Center of Peking University, has studied China's grain policy for 16 years. He believes that the root cause of the "grain rat" problem is that the market-oriented reform of the grain circulation system is too late, and that the current policy has given state-owned grain enterprises The dual responsibilities of proprietary management and profitable management—one is policy-related responsibilities such as pricing purchases and handling inventory, and the other is profit-making responsibilities for competitive actions in sales.The former allows reasonable losses, while the latter aims at maximizing profits.The problem is that, in the face of tens of thousands of grain enterprises, the state cannot guarantee that they will not transfer the cost of the latter to the former and hide it from the sky.

Compared with other state-owned enterprises, state-owned grain purchase and storage enterprises enter the market late, have many redundant staff, low level of operation and management, and obviously lack of vitality.However, some persons in charge of grain enterprises simply attributed it to the particularity of grain commodities and the failure of the grain circulation system. Although this is a very important reason, it does not mean that the state-owned grain enterprises themselves have no responsibility and no potential. dig.In the 98 new grain reform plan that we introduce in the next chapter, there is a very important content, which is the reform of the state-owned grain enterprises themselves.Facts have shown that as long as state-owned grain enterprises improve their operations and make bold reforms, they can still create impressive results. In 1996, 59 urban state-owned grain enterprises in Shandong Province engaged in chain operations, with an annual profit of 3.52 million yuan, while the 529 non-chain enterprises had an annual loss of 17 million yuan. This is a good example.

The experience of the Fanjiatun Grain Depot in Gongzhuling City, Jilin Province is also worth pondering.This grain depot is a large national reserve depot on the Beijing-Harbin Railway, with an annual grain business volume of about 700,000 tons. This grain depot has always been profitable before, and in 1996 it suffered a loss of 10.37 million yuan for the first time.At that time, it was suggested that the losses were mainly caused by national policies.However, after careful accounting, the leadership team of the grain depot found that although policy factors exist, the loopholes in operation and management cannot be ignored.The Fanjiatun Grain Depot calculated the accounts carefully, and tried every means to turn around the loss. In 1997, the loss was reduced to 4 million yuan, and the annual savings amounted to 1 million yuan.

The Qingling Grain Depot in Jiaohe City, Jilin Province is a typical example of reforms that have achieved results.This is a small non-along-line warehousing enterprise. Under the severe situation that many grain enterprises across the country are facing huge losses, Qingling Grain Depot has achieved no loss for 15 consecutive years since 1984, with a cumulative profit of 2.3 million yuan and a steady increase in employee income. good performance.How did they do it?The first is to manage the enterprise and save every bit of it.They persevere in strict management, meticulous accounting, and careful assessment, so that Qingling Grain Depot has not lost a ton of grain, a lot of assets, and not even a single packing material in the past 15 years.In terms of operation and management, they operate flexibly and focus on generating income, earning every penny.Qingling Grain Depot is a small depot. The annual subsidy from the state is less than 300,000 yuan, while the annual operating cost is more than 500,000 yuan, with a shortfall of more than 200,000 yuan.In the past, countries lacked as much as they needed, but instead of waiting for what they needed, they took the initiative to adapt and meet the challenge.Not only relying on food to make money, but also engaged in diversified operations, walking on two legs, so not only did they not lose money in the past 15 years, but instead generated 1.1 million yuan in income.

Wang Yunkun, secretary of the Jilin Provincial Party Committee inspected the grain depot, and said emotionally, "If the food system in Jilin Province had managed the enterprises like you, the province's grain enterprises would not lose 16 billion yuan." Yes, if the grain enterprises in the whole country are like them, then the country will never be troubled by the current loss of more than 200 billion yuan. What does their experience show? The editor's note of the "People's Daily" is very clear: only by persisting in reforms, we can truly establish a new mechanism for state-owned grain storage enterprises to operate independently and be responsible for their own profits and losses, resolutely follow the path of reducing personnel, increasing efficiency, and diverting laid-off workers, and earnestly strengthen internal management. In order to improve the competitiveness of the enterprise and increase the efficiency, the cost and expenses can be improved.

In a word, only reform is the only way out for state-owned grain purchase and storage enterprises; similarly, as long as there is reform, state-owned grain purchase and storage enterprises will surely be able to regain their glory and make new achievements.