As a NPC deputy from a poor township of Southwest China, Wang
Xinqiong is to bring two pieces of breaking news from Beijing to
the villagers she represents.
One is that farmers in her poverty-stricken county will pay no
agricultural tax this year. The other is that rural children will
benefit from free compulsory education.
"I was elated by the announcements by Premier
Wen
Jiabao, but at the same time, I was seriously concerned about
the rural situation in poor areas if the central government's
financial input is not going to be enough," Wang said.
Wang is head of Tanxi Township in mountainous Pingchang County in
the populous
Sichuan
Province. It is a county where nearly all of the towns have
fallen into financial hard times.
Because of the trouble, local governments' operations have become a
problem, including education, health and infrastructure
construction, Wang said.
"That's the real situation in poor rural communities," said Wang.
Wen has come up with viable solutions to Wang's communities'
problems.
"Revenue decreases in local budgets brought about by reduced or
exempted taxes on agriculture and livestock will be offset
principally by transferring payments from the central government,"
the premier said in his report delivered at the beginning of the
ongoing NPC session.
He told legislators that the government will speed up the
nationwide process of agricultural tax reductions, exempt tax in
592 poverty-stricken counties including Wang's county and do away
with livestock taxes across the country before the end of this
year.
The government will exempt agricultural tax for farmers throughout
the country in 2006, two years ahead of schedule.
The tax-cut plan will involve an additional 14 billion yuan (US$1.7
billion) from the central budget this year and will bring the total
expenditures to 66.4 billion yuan (US$8 billion).
Increasing the income of China's 768 million farmers and grain
output is high on the government's agenda.
Xinhua News Agency cited Fan Xiaojian, vice-minister of
agriculture, as saying that 26 of the Chinese mainland's 31
provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions have announced
termination of all agricultural tax before the end of this year,
which means about 730 million farmers will have been relieved from
the burden of the levies.
Jiang Zhongyi, a senior researcher at the Ministry of Agriculture,
also applauded the central government's efforts, which ended the
country's practice of levying taxes from farmers for nearly 2,000
years.
For rural people, who currently earn an average monthly income of
about 200 yuan (US$24), the timing is really good, said Jiang, a
researcher of rural policy.
"To me, the most important thing is that grass-roots governments
won't be able to collect other fees under the excuse of the
agricultural tax," said Jiang.
Statistics indicate that the agricultural tax raises just 30-40
billion yuan (US$3.6-4.8 billion) annually, around 5 percent of the
government's financial income. But before the reform, the local
governments also levied additional fees of around 100 billion yuan
(US$12 billion).
He is concerned "whether the positive momentum can be sustained."
"Because the money from the central government cannot fully meet
the need of local governments, I'm afraid local officials will
still risk collecting fees from farmers to feed the local
bureaucracy," said Jiang.
Jiang said the central government has been pressuring local
governments to cut bloated grass-roots bureaucracies by forbidding
them from collecting money from farmers.
"To my understanding, that's the strategy planed by China's highest
leadership to streamline grass-roots governments," said Jiang.
The central government has cut its bureaucracy in 2003 but left
much freedom for local governments to reform and streamline.
(
China Daily March 9, 2005)