本文以7个建制镇的农村工业发展的实地调研为基础，对比研究我国乡镇工业发展的一般特点和共性规律，比较深入细致地探讨了以镇区农村工业为主的乡镇企业产生和发展的机制、农村工业发展在农村现代化进程中的作用、农村工业化水平的地域差异性等问题。

Before the reform, the industrialization of China took the way of "taking the cities as key areas and the investment from the state as the main resource for industrial construction".In 1978 the industrial output value of rural area accounted for only 9% of that of the whole of China. In the recent 10 years, the economic structure in rural China has gradually changed and the industry has become the main body.Of the total economic volume,the industrial output value increased from 19% in 1978 to 57%,Which was 41% of the total industrial value of China.The development of industry in rural areas was the significant characteristic of Chinese industrialization in this stage. The correlation analysis indicates that the rural industry is the base for the rural economic prosperity. The ocrrelation coefficient reached 0.985 in 1992 compared to only 0.729 in 1980. The results of the field work in 7 towns of 6 provinces have proved this correlation with regard to two aspects.First of all,the rural industry by turning over profit (10% of the net profit of the enterprise) and management fee (5% of the sales income) and social expenditure(10% of the profit) contributed to the town construction; secondly,in general the income of workers in township enterprises was 2 to 3 times higher than that of local peasants and 79% of them had a monthly income between 100 and 250 Yuan RMB.There is a great regional difference in the development level and distribution of rural industry.In 1980 the gravity centre of me rural industry was located at 116,13E and 33.08N,which was in the middle of Anhui province.The development between eastern areas and western areas was seriously unequal and the deviation coefficient was 1.15. The gravity centre moved continuously towards East until 1988 and the deviation coefficient reached its peak with 1.28. The rural industrial output value in the coastal provinces amounted to 74% of the total China. After moving North for one year the gravity centre has moved towards South continuously till 1992 which resulted in a decreasing difference between the East and the West and a slight increase of difference between the North and the South. The degree of deviation has kept stable. From the proportion of rural industry in rural economy and the proportion of rural industry in total provincial industry can we see that most of the provinces in the hinterland had a relatively backward rural industry.