permissions - Also BAT struggles on
 
British American Tobacco first said they had permission for a factory for 100bn cigarrets in a desperate efforts to keep the growth of China's population in check by causing more lung cancer. Then the Chinese monopoly in charge of tobacco said they had given no permission, causing painful scenes between BAT and their investors. Now BAT says again it has permission.
It looks a bit like the scene I described yesterday, after I learned a Dutch business man said he had permission to build a US$2 bn sport complex in Shanghai.
The central government is trying to reduce all these systems that make control into an often not very useful habit, but having permission it still a good idea. Only, every time it is very important to see who gives those permissions.
Jan du Plessis, chairman of BAT, now actually says he has top-level permission. That might actually be bad news, since in some cases top-level permission means that you are going to get a hell of a lot of trouble on a lower level, in his case with the Tobacco Monopoly. They can rather effectively block many decisions. Similar to this famous Singaporean industrial park in Suzhou that kicked off ten years ago with top-level permission from President Jiang Zemin, but without support on a local level.
People wrongly think this is a communist country, with command style of organizing.