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Back to the villages with a new package

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-10-28 16:09

[The author Ma Xiaohe is a researcher with the National Development and Reform Commission]

On the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the reform and opening-up policy in 1978, the third Plenary Session of the 17th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, which concluded on Oct 12, passed a resolution on rural reform and development, outlining the country's current rural situation and mapping out rural development in the coming years.

It is known China's remarkable achievements in economic and social development over the past 30 years cannot be separated from its unremitting efforts to push for rural reforms. It is precisely its great success in rural reforms that prompted the country to make a bigger leap forward in the reform and opening-up drive.

Since the adoption of the milestone household contract responsibility system in Fengyang county, Anhui province, 30 years ago, the country has continuously advanced and deepened this viable land system. It has gradually pushed for a market-oriented commodities transaction and resources distribution model. This has been done by reforming the system of purchasing and selling agricultural products and also the mechanism for circulation of production elements. In addition, a democratic village administrative system has been promoted throughout the vast rural areas to replace the obsolete people's commune system. Also, the country has strengthened subsidies to rural areas and expanded the coverage of the social security network, ranging from educational and medical to the minimum living guarantee system.

The application of a series of workable innovative reforms has stimulated farmers' initiatives, which has greatly boosted rural productivity and brought a sea change to underdeveloped rural areas. It has also played an important role in pushing forward the country's industrialization and modernization and its efforts to set up and advance a socialist market economy suitable for the national conditions. As the recently concluded plenum put it, successful practices in rural reform and development have offered valuable experiences for the country to set up and improve a basic economic system and contributed a lot to improvements in people's living conditions.

Currently, the country's economic and social development has entered a new stage, with industrialization and urbanization being accelerated at a fast pace and agricultural and rural development stepped up. However, the long existence of the urban-rural dual economic structure has posed a big challenge to further rural reforms and development. Compared with their urban counterparts, farmers' income growth has lagged behind. The per capita urban-rural income ratio, for example, expanded from 2.78:1 in 2000 to last year's 3.33:1. Due to the long-standing cities-first fiscal policy, the country's vast rural areas have not got enough input in the construction of infrastructure and public services. Also, the existence of different urban and rural residence management systems has set an insurmountable barrier for the flow of people from rural to urban areas. Farmers cannot enjoy the same treatment as urban residents in terms of education, medical care, employment, pension and housing. The underdeveloped financial system, which makes it very difficult for farmers to get needed loans, and the lax grassroots administrative system have also unfavorably affected rural economic and social development. Under these circumstances, consolidating the benefits of development achieved in rural areas and solving emerging problems in rural reforms remain a demanding task.

To further press for rural reforms, the country should set the construction of the socialist countryside as a strategic task, make building agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics the basic direction, and step up coordinated urban and rural economic and social development, as the resolution passed by the third plenum of the 17th CPC Central Committee points out.

To bring to fruition the ambitious goal, the country should first improve its land management system and guarantee farmers' legitimate land rights and interest. With the general principle of a strict arable land system and its efficient use in place, farmers should be given larger power in the transfer of their land use rights. Also, the existing land acquisition system should be reformed and improved to ensure farmers could get reasonable compensations if their land is to be requisitioned for public use.

Second, reforms should be made to the existing financial system operating in rural areas to solve farmers' difficulty in gaining access to loans. The country should also relax its policy on rural financial entry, expand rural financing channels and encourage various kinds of financial bodies to offer lending services for rural areas and farmers.

Third, the country should lay down a set of systems helpful to the transfer and movement of rural labor forces. As the main hindrance in this aspect, the existing residence system and the security and welfare systems meant for urban dwellers should be reformed. It should then gradually be changed into an urban-rural integrated one to ensure immigrating farmers enjoy equal treatment with their urban counterparts in employment, children's education, medical care, pension and the minimum living allowance.

Last, the country should increase financial input in setting up and improving the rural public service system to provide farmers with the basic public services that their urban compatriots already enjoy. For this purpose, measures should be taken to improve the existing administrative management functions of county and township-level governments. Also, non-governmental intermediary agencies in rural areas should be encouraged to strengthen rural public services.

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