Acquiring land was one notorious problem, where complex rules made it hard for businesses to buy plots directly from farmers, forcing them to rely on government-held ‘land banks’ instead. Bureaucrats also controlled reclassification for industrial use, allowing them to vastly increase land values. All of this was an invitation to collusion, giving birth to what was often described as a ‘land mafia’, meaning a loose coalition of entrepreneurs and officials who plotted to buy up land, reclassify it and sell it on for huge profits. Many other state assets were carved up in this way, from the
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