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Q&A: Price of agricultural products

(chinadaily.com.cn)

Updated: 2016-03-16 15:11:08

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Q&A: Price of agricultural products

An employee of the Qilihe National Grain Depot airs corn in Yixian county, Jinzhou city, Northeast China's Liaoning province, Nov 13, 2014. [Photo/Xinhua]

Farmer's Daily: Last September when we were about to harvest corn, the central government introduced adjusted price for the purchase and storage of corn and the price was cut by 20 percent. That brought huge losses to corn growers. We know that this is also part of the supply side structural reform to adjust agricultural structure. But we want to have your take on this issue. What further steps will the central government take with respect to the price of grains in China?

Li Keqiang: The average price in China is about 600 yuan ($92) per ton higher than international price. That is mainly because our labor productivity is still quite low. So in the future, we are going to pursue coordinated development between new type urbanization and agricultural modernization to help more migrant people move into urban areas.

For those who are already working and living in urban areas, they will be granted urban residency if they meet certain eligibilities and requirements. And that is also one of the ways to boost their income. And we also develop appropriately scaled farming in agriculture to boost labor productivity and enhance the competitiveness of our agricultural products. In a word, the central government will continue to support the development of agriculture and enhance the well being of Chinese farmers.

All in all, we will continue to give very high priority to all issues related to agriculture, farmers and rural areas. And we will also pay very high attention to protecting the lawful interests of workers in the industrial sector. There are so many issues that need to be covered, but our time is limited. So regrettably we may have to leave something out, but hopefully we will meet up again next year.