In 1993, the state-owned Longzheng brewery in the city of Shunde in southern China produced only 10,000 tones of beer, operated at a loss and faced bank debts of 100 million yuan (£80 million). By 1995, after being made into a joint stock-holding company and forming a joint venture with San Miguel from the Philippines, it produced 100,000 tonnes of beer, made a profit and repaid its bank loans.
The Communist Chinese government was delighted. By then it owned only 20 per cent of the shares in the brewery, but it received revenue from dividends and taxes where before it had only carried losses.
The success of such experiments inspired Chinese President Jiang Zemin's announcement to the Communist Party Congress on Friday that all but the most strategically-important state-owned enterprises in China would come under new forms of ownership, including privatisation.
Shunde, a small city on the Pearl River Delta, was one of a number allowed to test new theories as China embraced the market with greater commitment after the last congress in 1992. All but 50 of Shunde's 884 state-owned enterprises were totally or partially sold to co-operatives and private businesses. The city invested the revenue in a pension and unemployment scheme, and upgraded its telephone service.
Despite the rapidity of reform there were no social disturbances - a point noted with satisfaction by a government worried about stability - and displaced workers readily found new jobs.
The results were equally dramatic in northern cities like Zhucheng and Zhengding, both of which had large numbers of lossmaking state-owned enterprises. Most were sold to workers and others auctioned off, merged, leased or made into joint ventures. In both cases, workers' incomes, labour productivity, profits and tax payments rose.
Many of the estimated 23 million entrepreneurs in China's rapidly-expanding private sector had been watching with bated breath to see what President Jiang would propose to the congress, and were delighted when he challenged to the Marxist concept of ownership by the proletariat, championed by the party's founder leader, Mao Zedong.
Even in Mao's native village of Shaoshan in central Hunan province, the endorsement of private enterprise brought joy. Ms Tang Ruiren, owner of the Mao Restaurant, told Reuters newsagency: "Before the congress, I and other individual businessmen worried about the government's policy. We did not know if the private economy would be changed into collectives, or even eliminated. Now we are very happy and excited."
Party ideologues were quick to caution that China's lurch towards privatisation did not mean selling off strategic state-run concerns as happened in Britain under Margaret Thatcher. Mr Xing Bensi, vice president of the Party School, stressed that some public sectors would remain sacrosanct. These included communications and transport, banking, finance, some major natural resources and defence.
The process of privatisation is nevertheless well advanced in the area of small and medium sized concerns. In south-eastern Fujian province, for example, the private sector now accounts for 50 per cent of all enterprises, provincial party secretary He Guoqiang told the congress, and the number of state enterprises had dropped from 41 to 17 per cent.
The party had little option but to make sweeping reforms in the public sector, experts say. Last year 50 per cent of state enterprises were making losses. Debts between firms rose to 12 billion yuan (£1 billion). High levels of subsidised credit contributed to economic instability. The drain on public funds inhibited development of education, social services and infrastructure. Massive bad debts prevented banks becoming commercial enterprises. And protection of state-owned enterprises prevented liberalisation of trade and entry into the World Trade Organisation.
China's strategic shift will make mergers easier and could propel bigger companies into the world market.
Mr Wu Jinglian, senior economist in the Development Research Centre, said for the government to try to support the entire state economy alone was like "10 fingers trying to hold down hundreds of fleas".
"Ownership doesn't matter as long as taxes are paid, and whether ownership is public or private doesn't matter as long as it advances development," said Li Xintai, provincial party leader of eastern Shandong - echoing the famous remark by Deng Xiaoping that it didn't matter what colour the cat was, as long as it caught mice (nor apparently does it matter now who owns the cat).
In other developments at the seven-day congress, China's most senior general, Liu Huaqing (81), gave his public approval on Saturday to the plan by Mr Jiang to reduce the 3.1 million strong People's Liberation Army to 2.6 million in three years. He told a panel of delegates that the world's largest army should readjust "to make it smaller in size but more capable in strength".
Police commandeered a taxi yesterday to remove a screaming woman trying to approach the venue of the Communist Party congress in Beijing's Great Hall of the People, witnesses said.