Since the beginning of 1971 economic management has been more highly centralized than before. A plan for partial decentralization of economic decision making adopted in 1965 was abandoned by 1968. The economy is organized into trusts (officially known as state economic associations) that unite enterprises within branches of economic sectors along functional lines, such as metallurgy, textiles, food processing, railroads, freight forwarding, tourism, wholesale distribution, publishing, and filmmaking. In agriculture, trusts are known as agroindustrial complexes; each complex unites several previously independent farms (see ch. 13). Trusts are subordinated to economic ministries and are ultimately responsible to the Council of Ministers. The extent of the ministries' authority over trusts is not clear. In some important respects trusts receive instructions directly from the Council of Ministers. Agroindustrial trusts number 170. In the nonagricultural sector about sixty-two trusts were originally created, with an average of thirty branches but as many as 106 in one instance. The process of concentration and centralization continued on a small scale at least until the spring of 1973, in part through the consolidation of separate trusts. Before the reorganization, trust branches had been legally and financially independent enterprises, and trusts served only as administrative links between enterprises and ministries. Whereas individual enterprises were previously regarded as the basic economic units in the country, it is the trusts that have been officially considered as such under the new system of management. Trusts have assumed various functions previously performed by the enterprises themselves. They formulate economic and technological development policies for the trust as a whole and for each branch; establish relations with suppliers, distributors, and financial institutions; and centralize research and development. Trusts have also been charged with responsibility for providing operational guidance to their branches and for organizing the export of products that they manufacture. Branches remain responsible for the effective organization of operations, efficient uses of resources, and the conscientious fulfillment of tasks assigned to them by the annual plan. Regulations governing the authority of trusts over their branches were intended to permit the establishment of flexible internal management organizations adapted to the particular needs of each trust. The trusts' policies were expected to be based on the rule that whatever the trust could do better than the branches should be centralized in it and, conversely, whatever the branches could do better than the trust should be left in their field of competence. Each trust was supposed to arrive at an optimal combination of management centralization and decentralization.