Chinese Premier On Anti-Flood, Economic Work
Premier Zhu Rongji has urged local officials to prepare for possible flooding and to redouble efforts to secure the Yangtze River embankments.
During his July 26-28 visit to Anhui Province, he also called for earnest efforts to implement the Party's economic policies and do a better job in the latter half of the year.
Despite successes in the first phase of flood-control in east China's Anhui Province, Zhu said vigilance must be kept about possible flooding and no complacency will be tolerated.
On July 26, he visited reinforcement projects and talked with people who were affected by the flooding and with medical workers and gave his best regards to all who were participating in the anti-flood effort.
He spoke highly of the province's anti-flood endeavor and its success in fighting the floods caused by torrential rainfalls. But, he warned, local officials need to remain on alert because the flood season is not over yet.
The province needs to get ready for a long-lasting anti-flood campaign, he said, and needs to make sure that people in the flood-hit areas, especially the 600,000 people now living on embankments have sufficient food, clean water, and makeshift housing to live in. And an effort also needs to be made to maintain social stability in the flood-stricken areas.
Time is of the essence in reinforcing major embankments of the Yangtze, he said, because floodwaters are getting worse and causing great damage to state property and people's lives. And the anti-flood efforts are costing the state dearly, he said.
The central government began last year to drastically increase spending on Yangtze embankments and there have been some benefits. However, more work needs to be done to bring the Yangtze waters under control once and for all, he said.
The central government will boost spending on the Yangtze embankment consolidation, focusing on projects in Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, and Anhui provinces, he said, and reinforcement projects along the Yangtze need to be completed in three to five years.
On economic work, the premier said the central authorities recently made a thorough analysis of the nation's current economic situation and had adopted a series of timely macro-control measures.
"The measures will play a leading role in effectively overcoming the current difficulties and maintaining the satisfactory trend of reform and development," Zhu said.
He urged all government departments and localities to take concrete steps to further the pro-active financial policy and effectively stimulate consumption, investment, and exports to retain sustained and rapid growth of the national economy.
China's experience over the past 50 years has demonstrated that the base of the national economy is agriculture, the importance of which "shall never be neglected or underestimated under any circumstances," Zhu stressed.
"At present, we must give priority to increasing farmers' income," he said, adding that this will not only lead to consumption growth in the rural areas, but will also strengthen the important role of agriculture in the national economy.
Measures must be taken to guide farmers to adjust and optimize the agricultural structure and turn out high-quality farm produce according to market demands, he noted.
At the same time, he urged that concrete measures be taken to end all unreasonable fees on farmers and reduce their burdens, noting that "under the current situation, reducing farmers' burdens is equal to increasing their income."
During his tour, Zhu also attended a seminar on social security in Hefei, Anhui's provincial capital where he said that improving the nation's social security system is an important prerequisite for the reform and development of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and also an important guarantee for social stability and progress.
He called for the establishment of a complete, standardized, and legal social security system to guarantee the basic living standards of those workers laid off as a result of SOE reform.
Zhu also pledged to gradually increase expenditures on social security by appropriately adjusting the structure of the budget, as well as through other channels. (Xinhua)
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