The imbalanced development between the town and country in China has become a crucial factor for impeding its balanced economic growth and it has drawn the attention of economists. Prof. Zhang Zhenhe, chair of Public Administration of top China Agricultural University in Beijing had an interview with People's Daily reporter Xiong Jian on this issue.

Q. How big is the gap between China's urban and rural areas at present?

A. I have met many experts and tourists from overseas during my academic and tourist activities. One category of people comprising those who, on their first visit to China, have an impression that China is a developed nation with a host of modern cities with luxury hotels and complete infrastructure after touring Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong, which very much resemble San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tokyo, London and Paris. The second category of people take China as a medium-income nation after staying overnight with some sort of their personal experiences at county seats in Henan, Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in northwest China and the northeast China provinces. And another category of people regard China as a still very backward developing country since they have a fairly in-depth understanding of rural areas after working in China for a relatively-long period and living in towns and outlying villages in Gansu, Guizhou and Qinghai provinces and Inner Mongolian region.

Q. How do you look upon the gap theoretically for China's urban and rural areas?

A. The difference between the town and country and imbalanced regional development are the phenomena existing in the industrialization process of all countries during a certain period, and particularly in the stage of industrialization. The gap between urban and rural areas will first enlarge steadily and then narrow in accordance with of the economic theory. If such gap is excessively big, contradictions in the political, social and other spheres will be inevitable. The income of workers and farmers tended to be balanced after seven full decades of strenuous effort in the United States. In the wake of the rapid economic growth following the reform and opening-up from the late 1970s, the urban and rural economy is still basically in the process of imbalanced growth, which paves the way for China's modernization process. To date, China's per-capita GDP approaches the 2,000 US dollar mark, close to the level of the lower medium-developed nations, and the imbalanced development between urban and rural areas will go on with an inertial force, so the gap between the town and country and difference within the agricultural sector will further enlarge.

The imbalanced urban and rural development with disparities increasing on a daily basis represents one of protruding existing contradictions, with differences existing in income, and in social development spheres, such as education, medical and health work and social security.

Q. In what aspects are differences manifested?

A. The differences are manifested mainly in the following six aspects.

1. Income gap between urban and rural residents. Thanks to measures the State has taken to benefit farmers in recent years, the ratio of urban income to rural income is maintained at 3.21:1. If some non-currency factors in the income of urban residents such as social benefits in housing, education, medical service and social security, are taken into account, the income gap between urban and rural residents will possibly be greater.

2. Education gap between the urban and rural areas. The ratio of the population of people with the education background of senior middle schooling, secondary vocational schooling, junior college and university education, and post-graduate university study stands at 3.4 fold, 6.1 fold, 13.3 fold, 43.8 fold and 68.1 fold. And what is more serious is that many rural school kids drop out during their nine-year compulsive education period.

3. Gap in medical service between urban and rural areas. With only a coverage rate of over 10 percent in rural medical service nationwide, more than 80 percent of the farmers have to pay their own medical costs. So farmers in many rural areas have turned impoverished or are in dire need because of illness in recent years, owing to a shortage of public health facilities or a drastic rise in their medical bills.

4. Consumption difference in urban and rural areas. Overall, the present consumption level of rural residents more or less equals that in the 1990s, lagging behind a full decade.

5. The registered unemployment rate in the urban able-bodied populations is five percent, and no one can so far figure out the unemployment rate of the able-bodied laborers in the countryside. Only about half of the 400 million rural laborers staying behind in rural villages are now working, if 130 million immigrant workers from villages to work in towns or cities are excluded.

6. Government public input difference. The ratio of allocations from the state revenue in agriculture has constantly lowered. As there is the question of division between the town and country and inside the system, market and public service in the urban and rural areas, some public utilities in the cities may not be cited as public works in nature in the countryside.

Moreover, individual income of urban residents is used solely for consumption or as personal bank deposits, but for rural residents, the individual income will also be used for their extended production. So in this sense, the income gap between the urban and rural residents will be further extended.

Q. How to spur the coordinated development of urban and rural areas?

A. China will use three to five decades to build socialist new villages beginning 2006. The urban and rural gap cannot be narrowed in one or two years, since it has not been shaped in a single day or two. To attain a fundamental effect on this issue, it is imperative to formulate and develop policy measures with a long-term, strategic farsightedness.

It is hoped that policies should have a continuity. Agricultural tax and miscellaneous fees shall be rescinded, restrictions on farmers to work in cities removed, compulsory education in rural areas enhanced, the level of the rural social security raised steadily and the minimum living allowance in rural areas guaranteed. Meanwhile, basic education and vocational skills training will be beefed up to increase the capability of low-income groups to take on new jobs, and all these measures will facilitate reducing the income gap between the urban and rural areas.

By People's Daily Online