China's central authorities have called for nationwide efforts to further promote the coordinated development of socialist material civilization, political civilization and cultural and ethic progress in the countryside.

In a joint document, the General Offices of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and of the State Council called on the nation to understand fully the significance of further promoting openness and improving the democratic management of village affairs.

This has a bearing on safeguarding the fundamental interests of farmers, developing socialist democracy, promoting rural reform, and improving the work style of CPC organizations in the countryside, according to the document dated June 22 this year.

The document points out that although encouraging progress has been made in promoting openness and democratic management of village affairs over the last few years, problems still exist in some places. These have hindered rural economic and development.

Village authorities are required to maintain the policy of telling villagers how the family planning policy is carried out, how relief funds and goods are distributed, how the land designated for residential housing is used, how the returns from the income of village collective economy are used and how much villager cadres are paid for their work.

At present, opening village financial affairs should remain the emphasis, while compensation for land requisition, contracting of cropland, villages' collective debt, policies on tax reform and the exemption and reduction of agricultural taxes, new rural collective medicare, and government subsidies for grain production and others should also be opened.

These matters can be made public through the village billboards or by other means such as radio and TV programs, the Internet and public hearings. General village affairs should be made public at least once every three months, and major issues that concern the farmers' benefits or other matters should be made public timely.

At the same time, a special group composed of publicly selected persons should be formed in the village to supervise the openness of village affairs, and the village committee is required to hear villagers' complaints sincerely and reply within 10 days.

The document also urges efforts to regularize the village democratic decision-making mechanism, punish village cadres who go against resolutions of the village congress, improve the democratic management system to ensure the farmers' right to participation, and strengthen supervision over the management of village affairs to ensure villagers' supervisory rights.

The document calls on CPC committees and governments at all levels to strengthen leadership in promoting the openness and management of village affairs, taking it as a major job with well-forged mechanisms and clear-cut responsibilities, and giving full play to the key role of the grass-roots CPC organizations.

(Xinhua News Agency July 12, 2004)