The increasing liberalization of China's economy led to state owned enterprises being put into competition with private enterprise and, increasingly, foreign Multinational corporations. The "iron rice bowl", the policy of job security for large parts of the industrial workforce, continued to prevent work units from dismissing workers, while private enterprises were able to hire and fire workers as they saw fit. The decision by the central and provincial governments to offer tax and financial incentives to foreign investors in order to encourage them to invest in China led to further difficulties for the danwei system as the state run enterprises were increasingly unable to compete.