Premier on Improving Industrial StructureChinese Premier Zhu Rongji has called for efforts to be made to strengthen the agricultural sector, accelerate the use of information technology and to promote construction of infrastructure.Zhu made the remarks when explaining the Proposal of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee for Formulating the 10th Five-Year Plan (2001-2005) for National Economic and Social Development at the 5th Plenary Session of the 15th CPC Central Committee last week. Zhu said that China pays great attention to ensuring grain security, increasing income for farmers and alleviating farmers' burdens. For a large socialist country like China with more than one billion people, it is now and will always be most important to rely on ourselves to solve the grain problem," said Zhu. Zhu stressed that at the present time when grain supply temporarily overruns demand, the country should not neglect consolidation of the farming sector. "This year's decrease of grain output has warned us again that our agricultural base is still flimsy and lacks an anti-disaster capacity." China should attach great importance to protecting and improving the grain production capacity and building production bases with stable output to ensure grain security. Zhu urged governments at all levels to stick to CPC's basic policies for the rural areas and take effective measures to increase the income of farmers. Reforms of the rural taxation system should be sped up, township government staff should be streamlined, and taxes and fees should be reduced to effectively ease the burden on farmers. Zhu said that it is a difficult historic task for China to continue the process of modernization and industrialization, and it is a strategic measure to promote the use of information technology in economic and social development. Zhu noted that industrialization is the basis for developed countries to enter the information technology-based stage. The new historical opportunity provides China the chance to integrate industrialization with information technology, to use information technology to upgrade the industrial sector, and to promote the advancement of the productive forces. The premier underlined further strengthening of infrastructure construction in the fields of water conservation, transportation and energy in his explanation on the proposal. The lack of water resources has severely inhibited China's economic and social development, Zhu said, adding that the proposal has highlighted economizing and protecting water resources as a strategic task while stressing the importance of building water conservation projects. On one hand, many regions, especially large and medium-sized northern cities, report water shortages while on the other hand, water is wasted everywhere. "The situation should be remedied immediately," said Zhu. Various water-saving measures should be applied and the development of water-saving agriculture, manufacturing and service industries should be encouraged. Another problem in the resource sector lies in energy, especially oil, said Zhu. He noted that domestic oil production can not meet the demand of economic and social development and spending large amounts of foreign exchange on oil imports is not a long-term choice. Zhu emphasized the need for great efforts to readjust energy structure and to take various measures to minimize oil consumption. Zhu stressed that the key to economic restructuring is taking market into consideration and relying on technology development. At the same time, government intervention and policy regulation should be adopted to effectively guard against duplication of construction, Zhu said. |
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