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<CENTER><FONT SIZE=2><B>Thursday</B> December 31 1998</FONT></CENTER><BR>
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Jiang presses for rural prosperity and stability
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<U><B><FONT SIZE=1>VIVIEN PIK-KWAN CHAN</FONT></B></U>
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President Jiang Zemin has promised higher incomes for farmers and rural stability will be priorities for the new year amid declining growth in peasants' earnings.<P>
"Next year, we must highlight and seize upon the all-encompassing matters of boosting farmers' incomes and maintaining rural stability," the President told the closing session of the Central Agriculture Working Conference in Beijing yesterday.<P>
"Authorities will pour in resources to deepen agriculture reform, strengthen irrigation and flood-control facilities and to push forward the application of scientific technologies in the agrarian sector to boost overall productivity," Xinhua quoted Mr Jiang as saying.<P>
Beijing wants farmers to earn and spend more. Rural domestic demand is considered a key factor to increasing national economic growth.<P>
Mr Jiang said: "Agricultural production is difficult to push up, while so easy to let come tumbling down. We must attach the highest importance to this."<P>
Despite another bumper harvest, the Agriculture Minister Chen Yaobang told the meeting per capita farm incomes increased just 3.3 per cent this year on 1997. The growth rate had been forecast at four per cent.<P>
The increase was significantly down on last year's growth rate of 4.6 per cent.<P>
Mr Chen hopes to increase farmers' incomes by four per cent next year.<P>
"Reasons for the slowdown of income growth include poor sales of over-supplied farm products, falling prices, and village and township industries, which absorb many under-employed farmers, have been stung by a decline in exports due to the Asian financial crisis," he said.<P>
Mr Chen said actions would be taken to stop local governments collecting too many random fees from farmers.<P>
Conference delegates ended the meeting by drafting strategies to improve the rural economy and social stability, including a vow to stamp out religious cults and rising serious crime.<P>
About 100 farmers gathered yesterday near Xian, Shaanxi province, demanding a probe into corruption by village and Communist Party officials, said the Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China.<P>
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Next year, we must highlight and seize upon the all-encompassing matters of boosting farmers' incomes and maintaining rural stability</FONT></B>
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