The article, the third in a series on implementation of the spirit of the Central Economic Working Conference, is written by the Henan provincial Party committee and the provincial people's government. It runs in part as follows:

The just concluded Central Economic Working Conference reviewed and summed up this year's economic work, correctly analyzed the situation and arranged and planned next year's economic work. It gave a concentrated expression to the will of the whole Party. Henan Province should conscientiously study the gist of the conference and resolutely carry it out.

Since the beginning of this year, our province has conscientiously implemented the series of principles and policies of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, as a result, the national economy has maintained a good development momentum. In the first three quarters, gross domestic product (GDP) increased 8.2 percent over the same period of the previous year, the guidance plan put forward early this year can be fulfilled.

Henan is a big agricultural province. Since the beginning of the 1990s, thanks to the preferential policies adopted by the Party Central Committee and the State Council to intensify agriculture, the comprehensive agricultural production capacity has been greatly enhanced and there have been rich grain harvests for consecutive years. On the one hand, this is an historic progress, on the other hand, it has unavoidably brought about some new problems, these mainly include that agricultural development is restricted by demand, there has appeared a relative glut of grain, cotton, edible oil and other farm produce resulted from a phased low consumption level. In order to adapt to the phased change in agricultural development and in accordance with the unified plan of the Party Central Committee, we have studied the main tasks of agricultural readjustment at the present stage, on the one hand, to meet the needs of urban and rural people for better quality of life and the diversification of diet composition, we have increased the variety of farm produce and improved the quality of agricultural products; on the other hand, we should strive to improve the comprehensive efficiency of agriculture and bring about a steady increase in farmers' incomes.

As a big agricultural province, its agricultural structural readjustment affects the whole situation. We have always paid attention to giving play to the advantage of regional resources, aimed at market demands, relied on scientific and technological progress and constantly expedited a change from the quantity type to a quality type of the province's agriculture and from a low-efficiency agriculture to a high-efficiency agriculture.

1. Taking the market as the orientation to correctly guide structural readjustment. In the process of making readjustment, we base ourselves on the local market, orient our work toward the whole country and give consideration to the world. We have paid attention both to meeting the actual needs for agricultural produce and to the study of potential demands, striving to satisfy society's demands for a certain quantity of agricultural products as well as for diverse, multi-level, fine-quality and dynamic development, and devoting major efforts to raising the commodity rate. At present, our province is mainly accelerating the construction of a market system with the wholesale market as the center and rural fair as the foundation.

2. Closely relying on scientific and technological progress to vigorously develop fine-quality and high-efficient agriculture. Technological progress and science-technology innovation are key to the optimization of the agricultural structure. In the process of readjustment, we have strengthened the research, development and popularization work related to high-quality farm produce and animal by-products and cultivated a new variety of good-quality special-purpose grain. Since the beginning of the 1990s, our province has generally updated from two to three times the varieties of wheat, corn and cotton, the coverage rate of improved varieties of agricultural crops, forest fruits, animal and poultry have reached 90 percent, 80 percent and 70 percent respectively. In 1998, the contribution rate of the province's scientific and technological progress in the rural economic growth has reached 41 percent.

3. Vigorously developing the intensive processing of agricultural and sideline products and improving the comprehensive efficiency of agriculture. By paying persistent attention to both agriculture and the processing industry of farm and sideline products, we have cultivated and developed a batch of large processing enterprises and brand-name products. At the end of 1998, the province had developed a batch of 240,000 enterprises for processing agricultural and sideline products, their output value approached 200 billion yuan, surpassing the output value of the primary industry. We paid attention to organically combining traditional agricultural production with industrialization, gave play to the active role of enterprises processing agricultural and sideline products, established commodity bases, radiated and promoted farmer households and encouraged the development of diverse forms of industrialized agricultural models. The province has mainly grasped 50 large leading enterprises and 20 high-efficient agricultural demonstration parks, developed 2,084 fairly standard industrialized agricultural operation organizations and given impetus to 4.51 million farmer households, accounting for about 24 percent of the province's total of such households.

4. Constantly strengthening construction of agricultural infrastructure facilities, enhancing the comprehensive production capacity of agriculture. The readjustment of the agricultural structure urgently requires constant improvement in the conditions for agricultural production, so as to mitigate the risk and cost of structural readjustment. Henan is located in the four major river systems of the Yellow, the Yangtze, the Huaihe and the Haihe rivers, which witnesses frequent natural disasters. In the past few years, we have, proceeding from the reality, drawn up a comprehensive plan for the province's water conservancy construction. While engaging in the construction of a flood-control system, we focused our efforts on carrying out large irrigation area water-saving transformation, vigorously developing the construction of plain well irrigation areas and farmland ensuring good harvests in times of drought and water logging; vigorously developing the construction of ecological environment for water and soil preservation in mountain and hilly areas, and doing a good job in the harness of small river valleys. At present, the province's effective irrigated area has hit 676.9 million mu (15 mu =one hectare), representing 66 percent of the area of farmland. In dealing with the province's 10 State-level and provincial-level forest ecological projects, we have been implementing the plan for the protection of natural forestry and restoring reclaimed land to forests in a planned and systematic manner. Since last year we have arranged rural power grids transformation and the construction of a batch of county and township highways and communication projects in 129 counties (cities, districts).

5. Promoting township enterprises' start of undertaking for the second time and speeding up the process of rural urbanization. Dong a good job in the construction of small cities and towns and labor export, speeding up the pace of the transfer of rural labor force to non-agricultural industries are the only way to solve the contradiction between the relative shortage of land resources and the relative abundance of human labor resources, and increase the income for farmers. Seizing the favorable opportunity for doing well the coordinated work for State-owned enterprises, we have actively done a good job in the township enterprises' start of undertaking for the second time, so that their development will turn from quantitative expansion to qualitative improvement. We have focused our efforts on the development and improvement of 20 major counties and 100 key enterprises.

We have made conscientious efforts to carry out east-west cooperative demonstration projects for township enterprises and engaged in cooperation with 12 eastern provinces and cities in the aspects of personnel, resources and technologies. In the pat two years, we have built 5,643 cooperative enterprises and brought in 10.9 billion yuan.

6. Constantly deepening reform and promoting readjustment of the agricultural structure. Deepening reform provides a fundamental impetus to the readjustment of the agricultural structure. In the process of readjustment, we have further established the farmer households' mainstay status for independent operation and given a free reign to the masses in independently deciding what to grow and what to raise, refraining from taking uniform measures. We have further expanded the opening of rural areas to the outside world and introduced foreign capital through multiple channels to develop agriculture. At present, our province has established agricultural cooperative relations with more than 80 countries and regions.