Chinese Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu has asked government agencies nationwide to implement central policies for supporting agriculture to achieve continuous growth in farmer's incomes and grain production.
During his inspection tour of east China's Jiangxi Province, Hui said "Although China's agriculture has seen a favorable turn in grain production and an increase of farmer's income in the past year, it remains an onerous task for us to maintain the momentum."
On April 6, Hui presided over a meeting in Nanchang attended by senior officials from six major grain producing provinces. He stressed that all departments should pay more attention to the difficulties and uncertainties in this year's agricultural work.
In order to ensure the smooth operation of the current spring plowing, he urged them to step up efforts in checking price increases of chemical fertilizer, and improve supervision over farming materials to ensure the quality of seeds, farm tools and chemical fertilizer.
He asked relevant departments to ensure timely delivery of subsidies for buying fine seeds and farm tools and direct subsidies for grain production, and to crack down on illegal activities of bidding up the price of farming materials across the country.
At the beginning of 2005, the Chinese authorities jointly released the year's "No. 1 Document," which worked out 27 detailed, substantial measures to ensure financial, administrative and technological support to the agricultural sector, including tax exemption and reduction.
The per capita annual net income for Chinese farmers was 2,936 yuan (US$354) in 2004, up 6.8 percent over the previous year, a record growth rate since 1997. Grain output reached 469.5 billion kilograms, up 9 percent over the previous year.
(Xinhua News Agency April 8, 2005)
