Farmers set to get more support

　　China yesterday vowed to renew efforts to assist farming and promote farmers' well-being while stimulating rural consumption, a central policy document of the country stated.

　　The country will invest more in farming and the countryside, including more subsidies for farmers, according to this year's "No 1 Central Document", which was issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the State Council and released yesterday.

　　The central authorities regularly release a major policy document at the turn of each year to face national challenges. This is the seventh consecutive year that the document has been themed on rural issues.

　　China will also improve the rural pension and healthcare systems to cover more farmers, the document said.

　　Similarly, a government-funded scheme will be initiated to expand sales of building materials in the rural areas and encourage more farmers to build better housing, it said.

　　The preferential policy is aimed at improving the livelihood of rural residents and stimulating rural consumption, in line with the national drive to spur domestic demand.

　　The country has given subsidies to household electric appliances and vehicle sales in rural areas since early 2008. The new document said such a policy will be continued and strengthened to cover workers of State-owned farms and forestry firms, but stopped short of detailing how much more subsidies will be given to those products.

　　Analysts and senior officials also called on the government to boost the policy's implementation, especially in helping farmers-turned-migrant workers in cities.

　　"More details on the policy are needed to better implement it," said Zhang Hulin, professor in rural issues at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee.

　　"And it should not be turned into a channel for selling shoddy products to farmers, but a real policy for promoting the interests of farmers."

　　Following media reports that some of the products sold to the farmers in the previous subsidized sales were of poor quality, the new document urged that these incidences "must be forbidden".

　　The document also said the provinces can include one more product in the category of subsidized sales.

　　It emphasized the importance of bridging the gap between urban areas and the less developed rural regions by helping farmers earn more income and giving them more subsidies.

　　The country will push to train farmers working in the cities and expand the scope of subsidies.

　　A senior official on agricultural policy said the government has realized that the integration of urban and rural areas would be the solution to large disparities between both regions and their residents.

　　"It was not the first time for the document to highlight coordinating urban and rural development," Chen Xiwen, deputy director of the Central Rural Work Leading Group, was quoted as saying by the latest issue of China Comment, a periodical under the Xinhua News Agency.

　　"The government will strengthen it as shown in the central document this year," he said.

　　The core issue is to help farmers who migrate to the cities be accepted as new citizens instead of temporary workers, Chen said.

　　Progress in this respect has been slow, analysts said.

　　"Therefore, the first document listed transferring some of the farmers into small and medium-sized cities and towns as one of the major projects for the country's future urbanization," he said.

　　Chen said that as the country's urbanization accelerates, there is still an urgent need to emphasize rural work.

　　"Even if the rate of urbanization reaches 70 percent (from the current 40 percent), there will still be 400 to 500 million farmers in rural areas, which means supporting the further development of agriculture and farmers is always an important and long-term task for the government," Chen said.

　　China registered a grain output of more than 500 million tons last year, the third consecutive year in which the output exceeded 500 million tons. But experts warned that continuing the feat is challenging as adverse factors such as bad weather may stand in the way.

　　The central document said priority in the budget should be given to infrastructure construction in rural areas and programs, which are aimed at improving agricultural output and farmers' livelihood.

　　More subsidies will also be channeled to increase the output of crops, potato, highland barley and peanut, as well as the purchase of agricultural machinery, it said.

　　The government will implement more policies to purchase and stockpile major agricultural products, including corn, soybean and oilseeds, to stabilize the prices of major farm produce.

　　More efforts will also be made to strengthen financial services including micro-credit loans and insurance services in rural areas, the document said.

　　To that effect, basic banking services will be made available in all villages and towns in the next three years.

　　"It called for more efforts to develop village banks, loan-extending companies, and mutual funds to guide more capital flows into the rural financial market," Zhang Hulin said.

　　The current gap between urban and rural development is very large and that is harming the country's future progress, so it is high time the government gave more support to rural areas, he said.

　　

By Jin Zhu and Xin Zhiming,  Source: China Daily 2010-02-01