OPINION> Commentary
Right decision injects life into rural reform
By Zhou Bajun (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-10-17 07:51

At the Third Plenary Session of the 17th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, which concluded on Sunday, a decision was approved on major issues concerning rural reform and development. The communiqu issued after the plenum outlined the current rural situations and drafted a program for the country's rural development in the years ahead.

It is well known that China's reform was spearheaded by its reform in rural areas 30 years ago. At that round of historically significant rural reform, which was marked by the adoption of the household contract responsibility system to replace the highly concentrated production teams, production brigades and people's commune-style production and management system, rural productivity was greatly emancipated and farmers' initiatives substantially ignited.

The new rural policy also promoted a remarkable change in the country's agriculture and the vast rural areas and laid a very solid groundwork for reforms to be pushed to cities and wider areas.

However, due to various factors, the country's agriculture and rural areas have lagged behind cities and the second and tertiary industries. Compared with their urban counterparts, the income of farmers and their living conditions are still at a lower level. In a report on promoting the steady growth of farmers' income, presented to the fourth session of the 11th National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee on Aug 29, Sun Zhengcai, Minister of Agriculture, said the recent years had witnessed the fastest growth of farmers' income but also the ever-expanding income gap between rural and urban residents.

Last year, the per capita urban-rural income ratio also expanded to 3.33:1 that year, with a gap of 9,646 yuan, marking it the year with the largest per capita urban-rural income gap since the reform and opening-up policy was adopted in 1978.

Since the start of this year in particular, uncertainties have increased for the growth of farmers' income. The government's commitment to ensure a rapid growth of their income in the whole year will be difficult to realize.

Under these circumstances, how to pursue a policy to tackle the intractable imbalance in development between the country's agriculture and other industries, between countryside and city, and between rural and urban residents was put on top of the agenda of the four-day CPC Central Committee plenum.

At the meeting, the top Party leadership vowed to allow farmers to lease contracted land-use rights in various forms, which is a further deepening and development of the workable rural household contract responsibility system under the changing situations. It will provide an effective political system for the evolution of the country's agriculture from the household unit to the large-scale and intensive operation model.

The new rural policy will add a new momentum to China's economic reform. The fulfillment of the move will mean a great success for the country's reform of the whole economic system and take its agricultural and rural development to a higher level.

The popularization of the new rural and agricultural operation model will help the country make a new breakthrough in pushing forward urbanization and bring to fruition its committed goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all aspects.

There is no doubt that the decisive move made by the ruling CPC is the result of its long deliberations on how to boost lagging rural development. More important, made at a time when the world is being plunged into a once-in-a-century financial crisis, the new move will undoubtedly help the country keep its commitment to maintaining a relatively rapid economic growth in the following years and bringing soaring inflation under control.

As a new and important supplement to the once-efficient household responsibility system, it will further spur farmers' initiatives and boost the development of the country's agriculture and rural areas.

In addition, the significant decision is expected to start to be implemented from the beginning of the next year. This means the huge desires of consumption, investment and production among 700 million farmers will be greatly stimulated. This will help the country in its struggle against the ever-deteriorating external economic environment and its shrinking export market. It also helps expand domestic demand to ensure this year's no-lower-than 8 percent economic growth rate and increase the supply of agricultural products to curb inflation.

China will have a bright prospect for rural reform and development given that the country has not fully integrated itself into the global economic context. In particular, the country's failure to realize a free conversion with foreign currencies also makes it better endure the ongoing global financial crisis than a lot of other countries or regions.

There are reasons to believe that the Chinese government will have another success in leading its people to fight the current global financial crisis and maintain a 9.7 and 9.3 percent of growth rate for this year and the next one respectively, as projected by the IMF.

The author is a senior analyst with the China Everbright Group

(China Daily 10/17/2008 page8)