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 | Friday, April 21, 2000, updated at 11:24(GMT+8) | ||||||||||||
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Farmers' Income Key to Stability, National EconomySenior Chinese lawmakers said in Beijing Wednesday that the law should be used to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the country's 800 million farmers and increase their income."The increase of income is not only crucial to rural stability, but also decisive for the sustainable growth of China's national economy," said Buhe, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature. He was addressing an on-going national conference on agricultural legislation. According to statistics, the income of Chinese farmers has been increasing by eight percent on a year-on-year basis, but due to overproduction, price cuts of farm products and slow-down of rural industrial development in recent years, the growth rate of rural income has been decreasing. The growth rate of rural income slumped to 3.8 percent in 1999 from nine percent in 1996. Liu Suinian, a celebrated economist and vice-chairman of the NPC Committee of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that the weak domestic demand is the most serious obstacle facing China's current economic progress. The proactive financial policy already taken by the government is necessary, including the expanded scale of treasury bonds, increase of payments to government employees and pensioners and bank interests cuts, he said. "But their long-term effects are limited, and the cause of the slack domestic demand lies in the poor purchase capability of two-thirds of the country's population -- farmers," he said. Buhe and Liu both called for efforts to speed up modernization of rural areas to increase the level of urbanization in the country. "Only 30 percent of the national population lives in towns and cities; if the ratio could be enhanced to 50 percent in one or two decades, another 200 million farmers will move to cities, including a large number of small new towns," Liu said. "This tactic is feasible based on research and experiments," he said. This urbanization process will greatly increase the income of farmers and help protect them from the influx of foreign farm products after China joins the World Trade Organization, the economist said. According to Buhe, farmers' living conditions have been worsened by the random fees and unreasonable fines levied by local governments. Formulating a law on protecting the rights and interests of farmers has been listed in the work agenda of the top legislature for the next three years, and other laws in the making concerning agriculture should also focus on relieving farmers from unreasonable economic burdens, the senior lawmaker said. "Social stability in the rural areas and sustainable economic development of the nation rely on the well-being of the farmers, and their interests should be our priority," he stressed.
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