Judged by almost any standard, law and the legal system in China today form part of a growth industry. Although the pace has been uneven and has at times seemed to falter, the growth has been maintained for more than a decade, since the end of the Cultural Revolution and the inauguration of the Four Modernizations. The most easily visible aspect of this phenomenon is the volume of legislation, unprecedented in any other period since 1949. The output is difficult to monitor precisely, because although the major laws and regulations issued by the National People's Congress and the organs of the central government are now for the most part regularly published, the majority of regulations issued at the ministerial or lower levels of the central government are still not published in such a way as to be easily accessible, if they are published at all; and the amount of local legislation which filters out of the area in which it applies is still limited.