The overall tax reform in central China's Hunan Province reduced 5.58 billion yuan (about US$675 million) burden for the farmers during the past six years.

Every farmer benefited a 108 yuan (about US$13) reduction, said the governor Zhou Bohua at the provincial rural tax and fee reform conference Thursday.

The official said Hunan started its reform on rural tax and fee systems in 1990 in an effort to standardize the tax burdens on farmers and eliminate the growing administrative and arbitrary fees.

Since 2004, the province began to exempt the farmers from the agricultural taxes, which intensified the reform, said Zhou.

He said the tax reform standardized the rural distribution system and boosted the comprehensive reforms in the countryside.

(Xinhua News Agency July 8, 2005)