Horizontal Economic Integration Is a Beachhead to Launch Urban Reform

China's rural economic reform was launched through the establishment of the system of contracted responsibility for production. With this breakthrough, a series of further reforms touching on both the economic foundations and the superstructure were possible. These included raising the procurement price of farm produce, opening farm produce markets, effecting necessary changes in the system of unified state purchase and acquisition of certain products, readjusting production structures, and restoring rural administration. As a result, many successful specialized households, specialized villages, and different types of economic affiliations formed spontaneously by the peasants have emerged. All this gave a great spur to the development of rural industry and brought China's rural areas into a new era of flourishing commodity economy.