China to Accelerate Rural Development, Increase Farmers' Income

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, March 06, 2002

China to Accelerate Rural Development, Increase Farmers' Income

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Agricultural and rural infrastructure development will be accelerated and everything possible will be done to create conditions for increasing rural incomes, a senior Chinese official said here Wednesday.

"We must strive for a four percent increase in rural incomes this year," said Zeng Peiyan, minister in charge of the State Development Planning Commission, at the ongoing Fifth Session of the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC).

The government will continue to increase investment in agricultural infrastructure, focusing on development of water- saving irrigation projects, drinking water for people and animals, roads, hydropower, marsh gas, pasture fencing and other small and medium public utilities in rural areas, Zeng said.

More investment will be made in projects to prevent floods and fight droughts and to reinforce decaying reservoirs. Experiments in transforming administrative fees into taxes in rural areas will be expanded to cover about one-third of the provinces. Moves to reduce or exempt agricultural fees and taxes in disaster areas will continue.

Development of bases for special farm products will be combined with vigorous efforts to develop special high-quality and pollution-free products, rationalize regional distribution of agriculture and protect farmland. Measures in compliance with WTO rules will be adopted to rectify and improve the state system for supporting and protecting agriculture, direct more investment to agricultural science and technology and rapidly develop ways to help agricultural producers, according to Zeng.

Superior seed varieties and improved breeds of poultry and livestock will be developed, coupled with strong efforts to import and cultivate them and to spread their application. Efforts to establish a system of quality standards and certification, a testing and measuring system and market information system for farm products will be strengthened.

Work to set up pest- or disease-free areas and a system for preventing epidemic diseases in poultry and livestock will be accelerated to promote development of the poultry and livestock industry. The processing industry for farm products will be developed to increase the added value of these products. Support will be given to leading enterprises to bring the industrial management of agriculture to a higher level. A serious effort will be made to develop small model towns for comprehensive economic development.

"We will continue to aid indigent people through development- oriented assistance and increase funding for poverty reduction programs through various channels," Zeng Peiyan said, adding that the central government will grant 10.6 billion yuan for poverty reduction funds this year.

"We will provide more jobs to people as an alternative to relief to improve infrastructure in poverty-stricken areas and ethnic minority areas so that these areas will become more self- reliant in their development," he said.

Zeng noted that trial programs will be conducted to move people out of areas with adverse living conditions and a fragile environment and help them start a new life elsewhere.

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