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Monday 2 February 2009
China Pledges Rural Help
China’s 750 million-strong farming population faces a tough 2009, the government warned on Sunday, vowing price support, land controls and curbs on imports to shore up flagging rural incomes and ward off unrest.
BEIJING – China’s 750 million-strong farming population faces a tough 2009, the government warned on Sunday, vowing price support, land controls and curbs on imports to shore up flagging rural incomes and ward off unrest.
The Communist Party government customarily focuses its first major policy statement each year on rural development and this one was accompanied by a sobering warning about the pressures from the global financial crisis, falling commodity prices and rising migrant worker unemployment.
‘At present, the international financial crisis continues to spread, its negative impact on our country’s economy has been deepening by the day, and the shocks to agricultural and rural development are constantly emerging,’ said the document issued through the Xinhua news agency.
This year would be ‘extremely arduous’ for making any gains in improving the lives and incomes of China’s poor farmers, it said.
The recipe of rural policies will play an important part in China’s overall economic stimulus plans for this year.
China’s economic growth slumped to 6.8 per cent in the last quarter, dragging down the pace of expansion for all of 2008 to a seven-year low of 9.0 per cent as the full force of the global financial crisis struck home.
China wants to tap rural spending potential to jolt economic growth out of the slowdown, and the Party worries that many millions of idle migrant workers made jobless by the slowdown could stoke protests and unrest.
‘We must truly enhance our sense of crisis and take full account of the hardships,’ said the policy document. ‘Be determined to prevent farmers’ incomes fluctuating.’
The government statement set out broad policies - but no specifics - to address these worries.
More money will go to agricultural subsidies, including expanded support for soy and rapeseed varieties. Budget outlays and bond revenues will be ‘skewed’ more to villages. More government earnings from farmland taken for commercial development will go to rural needs.
Minimum purchase prices for cereals will rise. The government will increase reserve holdings of cereals, cotton, edible oils and pork.
And in a step that could stir friction with other major agricultural nations, the document suggested the government may strengthen controls on some imports.
‘The timing and rhythm of imports and exports of major agricultural commodities must be properly mastered, supporting exports of competitive agricultural exports and preventing excessive imports of some commodities shaking the domestic market.’
The slowdown in 2008 snapped a five-year streak of double-digit growth that has turned China into the third-largest economy in the world after the United States and Japan.
China is pinning its hopes on boosting domestic demand to achieve an 8 per cent GDP growth target this year.
But income growth slowed in 2008 as the economy weakened, with average incomes in cities outpacing those in the countryside for the 11th year in a row.
A wave of factory shutdowns in the wake of falling exports also left millions of migrant workers unemployed and put downward pressure on the wages of those who have hung on to their jobs, adding to worries among officials about a rise in social unrest.
Ma Jiantang, director of the National Bureau of Statistics, estimates that about 5 per cent of the 130 million migrant workers had returned to their homes since late 2008. Other officials said even more had gone home.
1 comment:
China Pledges Rural Help
Reuters
1 February 2009
BEIJING – China’s 750 million-strong farming population faces a tough 2009, the government warned on Sunday, vowing price support, land controls and curbs on imports to shore up flagging rural incomes and ward off unrest.
The Communist Party government customarily focuses its first major policy statement each year on rural development and this one was accompanied by a sobering warning about the pressures from the global financial crisis, falling commodity prices and rising migrant worker unemployment.
‘At present, the international financial crisis continues to spread, its negative impact on our country’s economy has been deepening by the day, and the shocks to agricultural and rural development are constantly emerging,’ said the document issued through the Xinhua news agency.
This year would be ‘extremely arduous’ for making any gains in improving the lives and incomes of China’s poor farmers, it said.
The recipe of rural policies will play an important part in China’s overall economic stimulus plans for this year.
China’s economic growth slumped to 6.8 per cent in the last quarter, dragging down the pace of expansion for all of 2008 to a seven-year low of 9.0 per cent as the full force of the global financial crisis struck home.
China wants to tap rural spending potential to jolt economic growth out of the slowdown, and the Party worries that many millions of idle migrant workers made jobless by the slowdown could stoke protests and unrest.
‘We must truly enhance our sense of crisis and take full account of the hardships,’ said the policy document. ‘Be determined to prevent farmers’ incomes fluctuating.’
The government statement set out broad policies - but no specifics - to address these worries.
More money will go to agricultural subsidies, including expanded support for soy and rapeseed varieties. Budget outlays and bond revenues will be ‘skewed’ more to villages. More government earnings from farmland taken for commercial development will go to rural needs.
Minimum purchase prices for cereals will rise. The government will increase reserve holdings of cereals, cotton, edible oils and pork.
And in a step that could stir friction with other major agricultural nations, the document suggested the government may strengthen controls on some imports.
‘The timing and rhythm of imports and exports of major agricultural commodities must be properly mastered, supporting exports of competitive agricultural exports and preventing excessive imports of some commodities shaking the domestic market.’
The slowdown in 2008 snapped a five-year streak of double-digit growth that has turned China into the third-largest economy in the world after the United States and Japan.
China is pinning its hopes on boosting domestic demand to achieve an 8 per cent GDP growth target this year.
But income growth slowed in 2008 as the economy weakened, with average incomes in cities outpacing those in the countryside for the 11th year in a row.
A wave of factory shutdowns in the wake of falling exports also left millions of migrant workers unemployed and put downward pressure on the wages of those who have hung on to their jobs, adding to worries among officials about a rise in social unrest.
Ma Jiantang, director of the National Bureau of Statistics, estimates that about 5 per cent of the 130 million migrant workers had returned to their homes since late 2008. Other officials said even more had gone home.
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