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| Officials pledge to improve farmers' lives |
| CCTV.COM 2003-03-11 09:03:02 |
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There are 800 million farmers in China, accounting for more than two－thirds of the country's total population. The Minister of Agriculture Du Qinglin and officials from the State Council say the government will try to raise farmers' incomes by carrying out a new rural land contract and ongoing tax reforms. They will also speed up agricultural industrialization and urbanization to improve the sector's living standard.
The annual income of farmers in 2002 is only about 2,400 yuan, or about 300 US dollars. That's one－third incomes in urban areas. State Council official, Chen Xiwen, described the problem at Monday's press conference.
Chen, vice president of Development Research Center of the State Council, said: "There are two major reasons. One is the lower prices of agricultural produce due to oversupply and the other reason is the changing urban consumption structure. There is less consumption of agricultural produce."
To aid farmers, the government has implemented a series of policies including the rural land contract, which for the first time, legally guaranteed farmers long－term rights to use their contracted land for 30 years. This law took effect at the beginning of the month.
The central government will also spend over 30 billion yuan this year to continue tax reforms to alleviate the financial burden of farmers.
Banks are also granting low interest loans to increase the income of farmers. The loan has benefits of about 10 percent of farmer household incomes.
But problem can't be solved if the farmer population in China remains its current size. Officials are encouraging surplus rural laborers to move to urban areas. Recent regulations have ensured the basic rights of those about 100 million migrant workers.
"The central government has issued regulations to prohibit job discrimination based on residency. And delaying wage payments to migrant workers is forbidden," Chen added.
But there's a tough road ahead to implementing policies to protect farmers, many legislators say. Shifting surplus rural workers to urban areas could affect unemployed city dwellers. But one thing is clear, officials said, rural poverty must be overcome. If it's not seriously addressed, China will never become a well－off society by 2020, they said.
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Editor: Xiao Wei CCTV.com
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