In 1970 and 1971 a large number of inter-enterprise contracts were not concluded on time and, despite legal provisions for financial and other sanctions, thousands of contracts were not adhered to. This entailed a disruption of supplies and production, nonfulfillment of export obligations, and insufficient deliveries to the domestic market. In an attempt to cope with the supply problem, the Ministry of Technical-Material Supply and Control of the Management of Fixed Assets was created in September 1971--yet another example of trying to solve economic problems by administrative means. The final stage in the planning process, as in the past, continues to be the assignment to each enterprise of specific tasks bearing on all aspects of its operations. These tasks, generally known as plan indicators, spell out in minute detail such items as the production and investment program, the size of the labor force and the wage bill, costs of production, and profits. They also specify norms for the use of all materials, equipment, and labor and set goals for raising productivity. In the case of large enterprises the number of indicators runs into the thousands. The indicators are also used to evaluate the performance of enterprises in relation to the plan. The entire process has been said to represent the application of democratic centralism to planning. The number and type of indicators to be assigned to enterprises and their associations and the nature of the system of indicators best suited to stimulate greater efficiency and technological innovation have been subjects of wide-ranging and intensive debates. No clarification of the underlying issues, however, much less a consensus on appropriate measures to be undertaken, had emerged by early 1972. Officials have ascribed the lack of any significant progress in the planning reform to general inertia, organizational confusion, bureaucratic interests, and a reluctance on the part of many enterprise directors to assume the added measure of responsibility that is inherent in a greater freedom to exercise initiative. Most of the officials are aware, nevertheless, that the basic problem lies in the absence of adequate incentives. The reconciliation of an obligatory central plan with enterprise autonomy has thus far proved elusive.