In order to pacify the critics and to show that the New Economic System was compatible with socialism, at the 7th SED congress in April 1967, Ulbricht renamed his economic reforms as the Economic System of Socialism (ESS). From 1968, greater state control over the economy was reintroduced to achieve accelerated growth in selected segments. A new central plan was meant to prioritize and direct development of these preferred structure-determining projects, while the rest of economy was supposed to continue with the NES.
