Planned Commodity Economy

On October 20, 1984, the Third Plenary Session of the 12th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) was held in Beijing.

The Session unanimously approved the Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Economic Restructuring. It stated that the most urgent requirement for China's development was to invigorate the domestic economy and open up to the outside world and to speed up economic restructuring particularly in urban areas. It defined the primary tasks of reform as establishing a vigorous socialist economic system with Chinese characteristics, and the development of social productivity.

The Decision indicated that the need to break with traditional concepts that oppose a planned economy to a commodity economy and to develop a clear understanding that a socialist planned economy is a planned commodity economy based on a system of public ownership. It stated that the full-scale development of a commodity economy is a prerequisite of economic modernization.

The Decision defined the basic goals of the reform program and laid the foundations for the break up of the planned economy.