Efforts to build a new socialist countryside must become more than
a mere attempt at bolstering image and reputation, warned a leading
economist on the countryside, on Tuesday at a press conference.
"However, some reports are emerging that officials have
interpreted the plan as merely building new houses or entirely
reconstructing a whole village. These situations must be avoided
given the heavy burden they would impose upon farmers," said Lin
Yifu, director of the China Center for Economic Research of Peking
University and a member of the 10th National Committee of the
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC),
currently meeting in Beijing.
Several leading experts and senior officials from the CPPCC
National Committee gathered at a press conference on Tuesday
morning on the sidelines of the ongoing CPPCC session.
Lin reminded reporters that the plan for the new socialist
countryside was put forward at the fifth plenary session of the
Sixteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC)
in 2005. A range of tasks was determined to achieve this goal.
These goals sought both to increase productivity and the
transparency of governmental affairs in the countryside while also
improving the lot of impoverished farmers, such as raising incomes,
bettering education and improving healthcare access and social
administration.
"The key issue in tackling the problems facing farmers and
agriculture is how to increase farmers' income. I had proposed
building a new countryside as far back as 1999. Increasing farmers'
incomes, improving their lives, closing the gap between towns and
cities, and finally realizing agricultural modernization are all
basic goals," said Lin.
"Farmers will reap direct benefits by improved public
infrastructure construction, emanating from judicious government
investment. For example, the government work report, delivered by
Premier Wen Jiabao yesterday at the opening ceremony of the current
NPC annual session, mentioned the increase in central government
funding last year for infrastructure construction, road building,
irrigation and improvements to the electrical grid. Meanwhile, safe
drinking water reached a further 28.97 million rural people with
methane becoming available to 4.5 million more rural families,"
said Lin.
"The project of building a new countryside as well as all other
agricultural policies should depend primarily on increasing
farmers' income," he added. "In order to realize these goals, we
must improve agricultural production through science and
technology, as well as relying on a modern market economic
system."
"The progress of modernization, industrialization and
urbanization will reduce available arable land and decrease numbers
of farmers. To match this decline, we must enhance productivity in
agriculture to safeguard our supply of food and agricultural
products," Lin stressed.
The first central government document of the year was jointly
released by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on
January 29, 2007. It outlines the state's first set of major
policies for the year to come and focuses primarily on rural
development, a trend followed for the last four years. It states
that developing modern agriculture is of prime importance to state
authorities in the quest to build a new socialist countryside
(China.org.cn by staff reporter Wu Nanlan, March 6, 2007)
