Rural businesses in China registered 1,749.8 billion yuan (US$211 billion) in added value in the first half of the year, up 13.4 percent over the same period last year.

Of the total, the added value of the industrial sector stood at1, 306.9 billion yuan (US$157 billion), surging 15.3 percent, according to figures from the Rural Business Bureau, which operates under the direction of the Ministry of Agriculture.

Rural businesses earned 406 billion yuan (US$49 billion) in profits, a rise of 13.4 percent, and they paid 148.8 billion yuan (US$17.9 billion) in taxes.

Officials from the bureau attributed the good performance of rural businesses to the respective increases in industrial production and exports.

(Xinhua News Agency July 24, 2003)