Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu said all efforts should be made to ensure stable rural and agricultural development and income increases for farmers.
Hui was speaking during his four-day visit to south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
"Agricultural and rural development is of vital importance to maintain a stable and relatively fast growth of the national economy this year," he told officials and farmers during his visit, which ended Tuesday.
Hui urged local authorities to put into place "as soon as possible" policies that could benefit farmers in order to promote the enthusiasm of farmers.
He asked local governments to strengthen infrastructure construction, such as irrigation works, and at the same time pay adequate attention to the winter farming work.
He also ordered local officials to help migrant workers, who returned home from more prosperous coastal regions after some exporting factories were forced to close amid slackened overseas demand, find jobs and offer more training for rural labor.
From Jan. 3 to 6, Hui visited farm fields and aquatics breeding farms in the countryside, and also inspected endangered reservoirs and impoverished villages in Chongzuo and Qinzhou, neighboring cities of Nanning, the capital city of Guangxi.
(Xinhua News Agency January 7, 2009)