Debt collectors by any other name muscle in on growth business

Wang Jianmin runs a small publishing company in Beijing that had just completed a large order for advertising material for a real estate firm that is doing well but was dragging its feet on paying.

'When I delivered all the materials, I went to see the finance manager to collect the full payment, as set out in our contract,' Mr Wang said. 'He hummed and hawed and said that they were short of cash.

'I went back the next day with four well-built men from the northeast who looked like gangsters. I told the manager this would be the last time I would be so polite and that, if he did not pay up, I would pass the job to these four gentlemen who were not as well brought up as I am. He went pale and arranged the full payment at once.

'I was ashamed to use the threat of violence to get money. But, the way things are in China, I had no choice,' said Mr Wang.

Non-payment of debt and lack of business confidence are chronic maladies afflicting an economy caught between a system tightly regulated by the state and a market governed by laws and regulations.

The coal industry - the largest in the world with an annual output of nearly one billion tonnes - can collect less than half the money it is owed, with the result that miners are not paid for months and companies have no money to buy safety equipment.