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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, November 11, 2003

Official: more efforts needed to finance agriculture

Chinese agriculture is starved of investment for development, but banks are reluctant to provide loans, hampering the rural economy, said Chen Xiwen, deputy director of the office of Central Financial Work Leading Group, here on Monday.


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Chinese agriculture is starved of investment for development, but banks are reluctant to provide loans, hampering the rural economy, said Chen Xiwen, deputy director of the office of Central Financial Work Leading Group on Monday.

Many facts and figures indicated the necessity to adjust the structure of the rural economy, including investment strategies and government policies, Chen told the Agricultural International Investment and Financing Forum held in Beijing by the Ministry of Agriculture.

Farming and township enterprises accounted for roughly 45 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), but only 10 percent of the loans from the banking sector last year.

The problem came from regulations, including one which prohibited farmers from mortgaging their farms or houses, making it almost impossible to get loans from banks.

A lack of capital support greatly restricted national development and widened the gap between rural and urban areas, Chen said. Last year, the urban-rural average annual income ratio was about 3.11:1, while in 1978 it was 2.57:1.

The rapid growth of the national economy in the past decade was amazing, but the growth mainly came from capital investment and exports, said Chen, also a leading economist, adding the government should pay more attention to domestic consumption, which was sluggish as farmers, accounting for around 80 percent of the 1.3 billion population, were not wealthy enough to boost consumption.


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