Revitalizing countryside is China's priority: official

Revitalizing the countryside is China's main priority, with the nation in an era of insufficient grain production, expanding urban-rural disparity and soaring national fiscal income.

Chen Xiwen, deputy director of the Office of Central Financial Work Leading Group, made the remarks on Wednesday at a press conference, which is held to promote the newly-issued "No.1 document" of the year by the central authorities, with "constructing a new socialist countryside" as the theme.

In 2005, China's grain output reached 484 million tons, still insufficient to meet demand. Moreover, the lack of farmland and water resources both limit the development of agriculture.

Last year, income of urban dwellers was 3.22 times that of the farmers, and the rural-urban gap is more dramatic in infrastructure and social undertakings such as education, health care and culture.

On the other hand, China's gross domestic product, national fiscal income and fixed assets investment have all more than doubled in the past five years.

Therefore, Chen said, the central government has decided to shift the nation's development strategy from an agriculture-support-industry one to the opposite, and decided to launch a "new socialist countryside" construction from 2006.

"Constructing a new countryside is a comprehensive and systematic project rather than merely building new villages," Chen said. He noted that the "No. 1 document" outlines the task from eight aspects, including promoting modern agriculture, increasing farmers' income and improving rural infrastructure.

The first basic measure to build a new countryside is to increase fiscal expenditure and fixed assets investment in the rural areas, but figures of the increase for 2006 will not be available until March, Chen said.

Financial support is "of vital importance" for rural development but currently "obviously inadequate," he said, but noted that the situation will certainly improve after the "No. 1 document" is implemented.

In an effort to enable farmers to borrow more money, the document embraces a total of more than ten measures to reform the financial system, including allowing private and foreign funds to buy shares in rural financial institutions.

During the new countryside construction, China will also continue to persist in its strict protection of arable land, so as to protect the farmers' fundamental right to use the land.

According to Chen, more than 200,000 hectares of farmland is turned into factory floors or residential areas every year in China. Improper land seizure has become a major factor contributing to rural mass protests.

"Eventually we have to steadily reform the land acquisition system itself," he said. "But the reform would progress carefully, and state monopoly will exist for the time being, before proper control measures are designed to avoid large-scale losses of land."

According to Chen, China currently takes three measures to protect the interests of the farmers who lost their land: increasing compensation, providing them with jobs and necessary training, and incorporating them into the social security system.

Source: Xinhua