· Document Number：No. 16 [2008] of the Central Committee of the CPC

· Area of Law： Reform and Opening-up

· Level of Authority： Group Provisions

· Date issued：10-15-2008

· Effective Date：10-15-2008

· Status： Effective

· Issuing Authority： Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Big Issues on Promoting the Reform and Development of Rural Areas
(Adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 17th Central Committee of the CPC on October 12, 2008, October 15, 2008, No. 16 [2008] of the Central Committee of the CPC)
The Third Plenary Session of the 17th Central Committee of the CPC comprehensively analyzed the current situations and tasks, holding that, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the reform and opening up of China, systematically looking back at the splendid history of the reform and development of the rural areas of China and summarizing the precious experience we learned from it, further unifying the understanding of the Party and the whole country, accelerating the construction of a new socialist countryside and vigorously enhancing the overall development of urban and rural areas are of profound and important significance to thoroughly carrying out the tenet of the 17th CPC National Congress, deeply implementing the scientific view of development, making new advancements in building a well-off society in an all-round way and opening a new page for building socialism with Chinese characteristics. The Third Plenary Session studied several big issues on promoting the reform and development of rural areas under new situations and made the following decisions:
I. Great Significance of Promoting the Reform and Development of Rural Areas under New Situations
The issues of agriculture, rural areas and farmers concern the overall development of the undertakings of the Party and the state. Through each of the historical stages of revolution, construction and reform, the Party has been insisting on combining the basic principles of the Marxism with the actual situations of China and has been attaching great importance to, seriously treating and focusing on the issues of agriculture, rural areas and farmers. To the present, the Party has successfully broken a path leading to the victory of the New-Democratic Revolution and a path for developing socialism.
In 1978, the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the CPC made the historic decision of shifting the center of the work of the Party and the state to economic development and carrying out reform and opening-up. The Party took the overall development situations at home and abroad into consideration, respected the initiative spirit of farmers, started the reform from rural areas, then pushed it forward throughout the whole country, and led the people of the whole nation in composing a spectacular epic of reform and development. In the magnificent process of reform and opening-up, the Party has been insisting on following the Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of “Three Represents”, deeply carrying out the scientific view of development, emancipating the mind, seeking truth from facts and advancing with the times, which constantly pushes forward the reform and development of rural areas and brings world-shaking changes to the rural areas of China. The moves, such as abrogating the people's commune, determining the two-level management system which bases on household contractual management and combines centralized operation with decentralized operation, fully opening up the agro-product market, canceling the agricultural tax and directly giving subsidies to farmers, have initially formed a rural economic system which meets the situation of the state and the social productivity development requirements. The facts that our grain production has been constantly gaining new growths, the supply of agricultural products has become abundant with each passing day, the income of farmers has increased by a great margin and the poverty relief work has made great achievements show that we are able to feed a population of 1.3 billion on our own. The developments that township and village enterprises suddenly arise as a new force, small cities and towns develop in full flourish, the rural market booms, the labor force in rural areas removes to the cities for employment in large scale, millions of migrant workers become an important component of industrial workers, industrialization, urbanization and agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics are accelerated have effectively consolidated the worker-farmer alliance in new times. With the strengthening of the construction of socialist democratic politics and spiritual civilization and the accelerated development of social undertakings, the ideological and ethical quality, scientific and cultural quality and physical quality of the vast number of farmers have been improved. With the building of the Party in rural areas being constantly strengthened and the village-level organizations being improved around the Party organizations of villages, the Party's ruling basis in rural areas has been effectively cemented. The grand move of the reform and development of rural areas gives full play to the enthusiasm of millions of farmers, greatly emancipates and develops the social productivity of rural areas, and improves the material and cultural livelihood of farmers by a large extent. More importantly, the reform and development of rural areas make creative explorations on how to set up and improve the basic economic system and the socialist market economic system at the primary stage of socialism, make great contributions to the historic step of improving people's livelihood from shortage of food and clothes to a general well-off state and to the acceleration of the socialist modernization process, lay a firm basis for overcoming various kinds of difficulties and risks and maintaining the overall social stability, and accumulate precious experience for successively pioneering the socialist path with Chinese characteristics and forming a socialist theoretical system with Chinese characteristics.
Practice fully proves that it is possible to continue to emancipate and develop the social productivity of rural areas and promote the all-round economic and social development of rural areas only by insisting on prioritizing the issues of agriculture, rural areas and farmers in the work of the Party, insisting on the fundamental position of agriculture, sticking to the reform of the socialist market economy, following the path of agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics and persisting in protecting the material interests and democratic rights of farmers.
Currently, the international situations are continuing to change profoundly and the reform of China is entering into a key stage. To take advantage of the important strategic and opportune period, realize the grand target of building a well-off society and accelerate the socialist modernization process, we need to make more efforts in carrying out the guideline of mind emancipation through the process of adhering to reform and opening-up, promoting scientific development and enhancing social harmony, and unswervingly promote the reform and development of rural areas. To continue to emancipate our mind, we must consider the great practice of reforming and developing rural areas, have the courage and insight to make explorations, and crack the difficult problems in rural development with new principles and new thoughts so as to provide undying spring for the theoretical and practical innovations of the Party. To adhere to reform and opening-up, we must know that the emphasis shall be put on the reform of rural areas, make breakthroughs in making overall plans on the reform of urban areas and that of rural areas, give new impetus to the development of rural areas, and add energy to the economic and social development of the whole country. To promote scientific development, we must reinforce agricultural development since it is the basis for scientific development, ensure food security and enough supply of major agricultural products, and promote the increase of agricultural production and the income of farmers and bring prosperity to rural areas so as to provide powerful support for the integrated, coordinated and sustainable social and economic development. To enhance social harmony, we must attach great importance to the stability of rural areas, improve the social management of rural areas, make the society more equitable and just, and make sure that farmers live and work in peace and contentment so as to lay a firm basis for the lasting peace and stability of the state.
New changes are occurring to the rural areas of China, the agriculture of China is facing new situations for being a part of international cooperation and competition, and there are as many difficulties and challenges as advantages for us in promoting the reform and development of rural areas, especially the deeply rooted contradictions caused by the dualistic structure of urban areas and rural areas. The economic system in rural areas is not good enough, the systematization level of agricultural production and operation is still low, and the agricultural product market, the collectivized agricultural services and the support and protection provided by the state to agricultural development are not sound, therefore it is a pressing requirement to build an integrated economic and social development structure for urban areas and rural areas. The agricultural sector of China is still developing in an extensive way, the agricultural infrastructure, technology and equipment are behind the times, the amount of farm land decreases sharply, restrictions from population, resources and environment become more and more, climatic changes become more and more influential, natural disasters occur more frequently, and the international food supply-and-demand contradiction becomes more and more prominent, therefore, we have more pressure to guarantee food security and balance the supply and demand of major agricultural products. As the public undertaking and public service level are relatively low in rural areas and regional development enlarges the income gaps between urban residents and rural residents, it would be an arduous task to change the underdeveloped look of rural areas. The social interest structure in rural areas changes a lot and some rural areas are poorly organized at the grassroots level, so it is an arduous task to improve the democratic and legal level, grassroots organization and social management in rural areas. In conclusion, the agricultural basis is still weak and needs the most efforts to make it strong; the development of rural areas still falls behind and needs the most efforts to support; and it is still difficult to increase the income of farmers and we need to make the most efforts to accelerate the process. Therefore, we must be prepared for danger in times of safety and redouble our efforts to cement the current good situation and enhance the future development of rural areas.
The whole Party must deeply realize that agriculture is a strategic industry that brings peace to the whole country and stabilizes the state power and ruling, that there would be no modernization of the whole country if there is no modernization of agriculture, that the country would enjoy no prosperity and stability if there is no prosperity and stability in rural areas and that there would be no well-off society for the people of the whole country if farmers do not lead a well-off life. Generally, China has entered into a development stage where industrial development promotes agricultural development and urban development brings along rural development, a key time for accelerating the process of transforming the traditional agriculture and following the path of agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics and an important period for demolishing the old dualistic structure of urban areas and rural areas and forming an integrated structure for the economic and social development of urban and rural areas. We must firmly bear in mind the basic situation of China at the primary stage of socialism and the development characteristics at the current stage, adapt to the new situations of the reform and development of rural areas, meet the new expectation of millions of farmers for living a better life, take time by the forelock and take advantage of the current good situations to break a broad path for agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics and open a new page for the building of a socialist new countryside.
II. Guidelines, Tasks and Important Principles for Promoting the Reform and Development of Rural Areas
To promote the reform and development of rural areas under new situations, we need to carry through the spirit of the 17th National Congress of the CPC in an all-round way, hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, follow the Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of “Three Represents”, put into practice the scientific view of development, take the building of a socialist new countryside as a strategic task, take following the path of agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics as the basic orientation, take accelerating the establishment of an integrated structure for the economic and social development of urban and rural areas as the fundamental requirement, stick to the guideline that industry feeds agriculture back, the guideline that urban areas support rural areas and the guideline of “giving more, requiring less and giving more freedom”, innovate on the relevant systems and mechanisms, strengthen agriculture's basic status, increase the income of farmers, protect their rights and interests, enhance harmony in rural areas, put the enthusiasm, initiative and creativity of farmers into good use, and promote the fast yet healthy development of rural economy and society.
According to the new requirements on realizing the objective of building a well-off society in an all-round way and the requirements of “production development, well-off livelihood, civilized countryside ethos, clean village physiognomy and democratic administration” for the building of a new socialist countryside as put forward in the 17th National Congress of our Party, by 2020, the following basic objectives for the reform and development of rural areas shall be realized: the rural economic system is better, the integrated structure for the economic and social development of urban and rural areas is basically established; great progress is made in the building of a modern agriculture, the comprehensive production capacity of agriculture is obviously improved, and food security and the supply of major agricultural products are guaranteed; the per capita net income of farmers doubles that of 2008, the consumption level is raised by a large margin, and absolute poverty is basically eliminated; the grassroots organization in rural areas is further improved, the system for autonomy by villagers is improved, and the democratic rights of farmers are under protection; the basic public services are further equalized between urban areas and rural areas, rural culture further flourishes, the basic cultural rights and interests of farmers are better protected, every person in rural areas enjoys the opportunity for good education, the basic living security system, basic medical system and basic health system are better in rural areas, and the social management system in rural areas is further improved; and an agricultural production system which saves resources and is friendly to environment is basically formed, the living environment and ecological environment of rural areas are obviously improved, and the capability for sustainable development keeps improving.
To realize the above-mentioned objectives, the following big principles must be followed:
We must cement and strengthen the basic status of agriculture and take feeding a population of more than a billion as the first job for running the country well and bringing peace to the country. We shall adhere to the principle of feeding ourselves basically on our own, make more efforts to support and protect the agricultural sector, carry out deeply the strategy of revitalizing agriculture with science and technology, accelerate the development of modern agriculture, and realize the comprehensive and stable agricultural development so as to lay a firm basis for promoting economic development, enhancing social harmony and maintaining the safety of the whole country.
We must effectively protect the rights and interests of farmers and take realizing, protecting and developing the basic interests of farmers as the basis for all rural work all the time. We shall adhere to the principle of “for the people”, respect the will of farmers, focus on solving the most direct and realistic interest problems that are most concerned by farmers, protect their political, economic, cultural and social rights and interests, improve their comprehensive quality, support their integrated development, give full play to their role as the principal part of the agricultural sector and their initiative spirit, and build a socialist new countryside by the hands of millions of farmers.
We must continue to emancipate and develop the social productivity of rural areas and take reform and innovation as the basic driving force for rural development all the time. We shall unremittingly push forward the reform of rural areas and the innovation of systems, make reform decisions more scientific, make reform measures more consistent with each other, give full play to the basic role of the market in resource allocation, strengthen and improve the state's control and guidance of the development of agriculture and rural areas, improve the rural economic system which meets the requirements for developing a socialist market economy, and adjust the production relationships and superstructures that fail to meet the requirements for developing the social productivity of rural areas so as to ensure the vigorous and energetic economic and social development in rural areas.
We must make overall planning on the economic and social development of urban and rural areas and always stick to the important strategy of building new types of industry-agriculture and urban-rural relationships to accelerate the modernization process. We need to make overall planning on industrialization, urbanization and agricultural modernization, accelerate the process of building a long-term effective mechanism under which industrial development promotes agricultural development and rural areas are developed with help from urban areas, adjust the national income distribution structure, consolidate and improve the policies for supporting and benefiting agriculture, rural areas and farmers, place the emphasis of the infrastructural construction and public undertaking development of the state on rural areas, equalize the basic public services in urban and rural areas, and realize the coordinated development between urban and rural areas and among different regions so as to make it possible for farmers to equally get involved in the modernization process and share the achievements from reform and development.
We must adhere to the principle that the Party takes charge of the rural work and provide political guarantee for promoting the reform and development of rural areas by strengthening and improving the Party's leadership over the rural work. We shall stick to the principle of always being practical and following the Party's basic policies for rural areas, strengthen the grassroots organization and political construction of rural areas, improve the work mechanism and methods for the Party to take charge of the rural work, maintain the flesh and blood connection between the Party and farmers, consolidate the Party's ruling basis in rural areas, and form a strong resultant force for promoting the reform and development of rural areas.
III. Making Vigorous Efforts to Promote Reform and Innovation and Strengthening the System Building in Rural Areas
To realize the strategic objectives of rural development and speed up the agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics, we must make breakthroughs in the key links of the structural reform of rural areas according to the requirements for making overall planning on urban and rural development as soon as possible, open up the rural economy wider, optimize the external environment for rural development, and reinforce the work of providing systematic guarantee for rural development.
1. Stabilizing and improving the basic operation systems in rural areas. The two-level management system which bases itself on household contractual management and combines centralized operation with decentralized operation is the rural basic operation system which fits the socialist market economy system and the characteristics of agricultural production and a cornerstone of the Party's rural policies, so it shall be observed unswervingly. We need to give farmers more secure land contract and management rights and stabilize the current land contract relationships and keep them fixed for long; make innovations in the agricultural operation system and accelerate the transformation of the mode of operation of agriculture; introduce more advanced science and technology and means of production to household operation, increase the input in technology, capital and other elements of production, and concentrate our efforts on improving the intensive level; develop unified operation toward the unity and cooperation of farmer households and the formation of a diversified, multi-layer and multi-form operation service system, develop collective economy, strengthen collective organization and service, form new types of farmers' cooperation organizations, develop various kinds of organizations to provide services for the socialization of agriculture, encourage leading enterprises to establish a close interest connection mechanism with farmers, and concentrate efforts on improving the organization level; meet the requirements of serving farmers, free entry and exit, equal rights and democratic management, and speed up the development of farmers' professional cooperatives so as to make them the modern agricultural operation organizations that can lead farmers to be a part of the competition in both domestic market and international market; enhance the reform of the collective forestry rights system in an all-round way, and conduct the pilot operation of the reform of the forestry rights system in more state-owned forest centers and key national forest areas; promote the reform of state-owned farm system; and stabilize and improve the grassland contract and management system.
2. Improving the strict and standard rural land management system. Land system is the basic system in rural areas. According to the principles of clear property rights, land use control, economical and intensive use of land and strict management, we need to further improve the rural land management system, stick to the most rigid farmland protection system, have each level bear its responsibilities, firmly keep the 1.8 billion mu of arable land, determine some land as the permanent basic farmland, and establish a farmland protection and compensation mechanism so as to make sure that the total quantity of basic farmland does not decrease, it is not changed to other uses and its quality gets improved. We shall continue to make efforts in land arrangement and re-reclamation and supplement farmland before occupying it, and may not seek balance for the occupation of farmland in one province, district or city from the supplementation of farmland in another place. We need to do a good job in the confirmation, registration and licensing of land ownership and land use right, improve the power and functions relating to the land contract and management rights, protect farmers' rights to occupy, use and get income from land contract, make more efforts to manage and serve the circulation of land contracted management rights, set up a good land contracted management right circulation market, allow farmers to circulate land contracted management rights in the form of subcontract, lease, exchange, assignment or stock cooperation lawfully, voluntarily and for compensation, and develop various forms of moderate scale management. Places with mature conditions can develop big specialized households, family farms, farmers' professional cooperatives, etc. It is not allowed to change the collective ownership and uses of land or damage the land contracting rights and interests of farmers in the process of the circulation of land contracted management rights. It is required to apply the most rigid rules for using land in an economical way, strictly control the total quantity of land used for construction in urban and rural areas, improve the house site system in rural areas, strictly manage house sites, and protect farmers' usufructuary rights of house sites. The land saved from the rearrangements of house sites and villages in rural areas shall be firstly re-reclaimed into arable land, and, when it is used for construction, it shall conform to the land use planning, be incorporated into the annual construction land plan and be firstly used for collective constructions. We shall reform the land requisition system, strictly define the land for public good from that for commercial construction, gradually narrow the scope of land subject to requisition, and improve the land-requisition compensation mechanism; requisition the collective land in rural areas according to law, make timely compensations to collective organizations and farmers under the principle of same price for same kind of land, and take good care of the employment, housing and social security issues of farmers whose land is requisitioned; allow farmers to participate, through various means, in the development and management of those non-public welfare projects which are approved to use the collective land in rural areas beyond the scope of land used for urban construction as determined in the land use planning, and protect their legal rights and interests in the process; gradually unify the construction land use market in urban areas and that in rural areas, transfer the right to use the construction land owned by rural collectives through a unified tangible land market by public and legal ways, and give collective land equal rights and interests as state-owned land if they meet the land planning; and improve the relevant laws, regulations and policies as soon as possible and promote the reform of the land management system in rural areas.
3. Improving the rules supporting and protecting agriculture. We shall improve the system guaranteeing the input in agriculture, adjust fiscal expenditure, fixed asset investment and credit structure, make sure that the growth rate of the input in agriculture from the public finance at all levels is higher than the growth rate of regular income, increase the state's input in the infrastructure construction and social undertaking of rural areas by a large margin, raise the proportion of the government's income from land leasing and farmland use tax used for agriculture to a great extent, and substantially increase the input in the public welfare construction projects of rural areas in the Midwestern part of China. For the construction projects for eliminating the danger of and reinforcing dangerous reservoirs, the ecological recovery projects and other public welfare projects as arranged by the state in the Midwestern part of China, we shall gradually cancel the counterpart funds at or below the county level. We need to diversify the sources of input in agriculture, integrate investment projects and strengthen investment supervision and administration to improve the use efficiency of funds; improve the agricultural subsidy system, expand the scope covered by the system, raise the relevant standards, perfect the relevant measures, give special support to the increase of grains and income, and give more subsidies to farmers for grain planting to a large extent annually; improve the dynamic control mechanism which gives subsidies for the means of agricultural production according to the rise in the price of the means of agricultural production; improve the system on protecting the price of agricultural products, improve the agricultural product market control system, steadily raise the minimum purchase price of grains, improve the measures for protecting the price of other major agricultural products, make sure that there is sufficient supply of major agricultural products, optimize the mechanism for regulating the import, export and throughput of agricultural products, and maintain the price of agricultural products within a reasonable range; improve the price formation mechanism of major agricultural products including grains, do a good job in dealing with the price relations, and give full play to the market price's role in promoting the increase of production and income; improve the agricultural ecological environment compensation system and establish an incentive mechanism good for protecting such natural resources as arable land, waters, forests, grasslands and wetlands and agricultural species resources.
4. Building a modern financial system in rural areas. The financial system of rural areas is the core of the modern rural economy. We shall innovate in the financial system of rural areas, lower the threshold for accessing into the financial market of rural areas, and speed up efforts in establishing a rural financial system which integrates commercial finance, cooperative finance and policy finance and has sufficient capital, full functions, good services and safe operation. We need to provide more policy support for rural financial development, diversify the financing channels, comprehensively apply the fiscal and tax leverage, monetary policies and other instruments, give tax deduction or exemption preferences and subsidies toward the determined direction, and guide more credit funds and social funds to rural areas. All financial institutions shall actively support the reform and development of rural areas, stick to the orientation that agricultural banks serve agriculture, strengthen their functions and fulfill their obligations so as to stabilize and develop a service network in rural areas. We shall expand the territory where the Agricultural Development Bank can support agricultural development, and provide agricultural development and rural infrastructure construction with more mid and long-term credit support from policy finance; allow the Postal Savings Bank to launch more business about agriculture; use the deposits newly absorbed by banking financial institutions at or below the county level mainly for granting loans locally; improve the corporate governance structure of rural credit cooperatives, maintain stable the corporate status of those cooperatives at the county or city level, and give play to their role as the main force for serving farmers; regulate the development of various forms of new-type rural financial institutions as well as the local small and medium banks targeting on serving rural areas; strengthen supervision and administration, make more efforts in the development of small-sum credit, and support the development of various kinds of mini-sized financial services that meet the characteristics and demands of rural areas; allow small rural financial organizations to get funds from financial institutions; allow farmers' professional cooperatives to conduct credit cooperation when conditions permit; regulate and guide the healthy development of nongovernmental credit business; accelerate the building of the rural credit system; set up a rural credit guarantee mechanism which enjoys the support from the government and participation by different parties and operates according to the market principle; expand the scope of valid guaranty in rural areas; develop the insurance industry in rural areas, improve the policy-protected agricultural insurance system, and accelerate the process of building an agricultural reinsurance mechanism and a mechanism for dispersing the risks of huge disasters; and make more efforts to improve the futures market of agricultural products.
5. Setting up rules on promoting the integrated economic and social development of urban areas and rural areas. We need to make breakthroughs in the integration of urban and rural planning, industrial layout, infrastructure construction and public service as soon as possible, balance the location of public resources between urban and rural areas, promote the free circulation of production elements between urban and rural areas, and enhance the integrated economic and social development of urban and rural areas; make overall plans on land use and urban and rural planning, and reasonably arrange the spatial layout for urban construction, farmland protection, industrial conglomeration, village distribution and ecological recovery; make overall arrangements on the industrial development of urban and rural areas, optimize the industrial structure of rural areas, develop the service industry and township enterprises in rural areas, and guide the flow of production elements such as capital, technology, talents and management skills from urban areas to rural areas; make overall plans on the infrastructure construction and public service of urban and rural areas, provide more financial support to improve the public service level of rural areas in an all-round way, and gradually set up a unified public service system in urban and rural areas; plan labor employment in urban and rural areas as a whole, accelerate the process of setting up a unified human resource market for urban and rural areas, provide guidance for farmers to go out for employment in an orderly way, encourage farmers to get employed as near their home as possible, and encourage farmers to return to their hometown to start business; make more efforts to protect the rights and interests of farmers, gradually realize the goal of giving equal treatment to urban residents and migrant workers in terms of labor reward, schooling of their children, public health and house purchasing or leasing, improve the work conditions for migrant workers, maintain work safety, enlarge the coverage of the employment injury insurance, medical insurance and old-age insurance for migrant workers, and work out and implement the follow-up measures for transferring the old-age insurance relationships of migrant workers as soon as possible; make overall plans on the social management of urban and rural areas, promote the reform of the domicile system, and lower the threshold for migrant workers to have registered permanent residence in small and medium cities so as to turn farmers who have stable employment and residence in urban areas into urban residents in an orderly way; innovate on the service and management system for floating population; allow counties to have more autonomy, make more general transfer payments to counties, make their financial strength match their powers, and increase their economic vigor and strength; promote the reform of the financial system of the counties (cities) directly governed by provinces, and prioritize big agricultural counties in the reform; try the system of having some counties (cities) directly under provinces when conditions permit; stick to the path of urbanization with Chinese characteristics, give play to the radiative and exemplary role of large and medium cities to rural areas, give corresponding administrative powers to small towns which have rapid economic development and strong population absorption capacity and promote the harmonious development between large and medium cities and small towns so as to form a mechanism under which the urbanization process and the building of a new countryside promote each other and advance together; and make vigorous efforts in the comprehensive reform package for integrating urban and rural development.
6. Improving the democratic management system for rural areas. We shall keep to the organic integration of the leadership of the Party, the position of the people as masters of the country and the rule of law, develop the grassroots democracy in rural areas, put the emphasis on orderly participation, information disclosure, discussion of issues upon negotiations and supervision over the exercise of powers, make more efforts to build the political power at the grassroots level, expand the scope of areas which exercise autonomy by villagers, and guarantee more real democratic rights for farmers; implement the practice that NPC deputies are selected at a same population proportion in urban areas and rural areas step by step, increase the number of farmers in the NPC deputies of counties and villages, and maintain a close relationship between NPC deputies and farmers; continue the comprehensive reform of rural areas, basically accomplish the task of reforming village and township institutions by 2012, and put the emphasis on strengthening the social management and public service functions of the governments of villages and towns; improve the village and town governance mechanism which meets farmers' increasing enthusiasm for participating in politics, publicize government affairs, and protect farmers' right to know the truth, right to participate, right to express and right to supervise; improve the well-functioning villagers' anatomy mechanism under the leadership of the Party organizations of villages, put into practice the democratic election which takes direct election, impartiality and orderliness as the basic requirements, put into practice the democratic decision-making in the forms of villagers' meeting, villagers' representative meeting and villagers' discussion, put into practice the democratic management which mainly targets on self-education, self-governance and self-service, put into practice the democratic supervision which mainly contains the publicity of village affairs, supervision over financial issues and public discussion and appraisal, and make great efforts to make villagers' anatomy standardized and based on systems and procedures; make more efforts to build the legal system of rural areas, improve the laws and regulations related to agriculture, farmers and rural areas, improve the capability of administration by law, and make more efforts in the law enforcement supervision and judicial protection for issues related to agriculture, farmers and rural areas; input more in publicizing and educating the legal system in rural areas, do a good job in providing legal services in rural areas, improve the legal awareness of farmers, and enhance the administration by law in rural areas; establish social organizations which are service-oriented, public welfare-oriented and mutual assistance-oriented in rural areas, and improve the social self-management functions; take various measures to increase the grassroots financial power, gradually solve the difficult problems existing in the running of some administrative villages, and eliminate the debts of villages in a reliable and stable way; and continue to do a good job in lightening the burden of farmers by supervision and management, improve the mechanism of “one deliberation for one matter” by villagers to raise funds and gather labor force, and improve the mechanism for developing the public welfare undertaking in rural areas.
IV. Actively Developing Modern Agriculture and Improving the Comprehensive Production Capacity of Agriculture
To develop modern agriculture, we must, according to the requirements of high yield, high quality, high efficiency, ecological friendliness and safety, accelerate the transformation of the development mode of agriculture, promote the scientific and technological progress and innovation of agriculture, improve the material and technological equipment of agriculture, improve the agricultural system, raise the output capacity of land, the level of resources utilization and labor capacity, and improve the anti-risk capability, international competitive ability and sustainable development capacity of agriculture. We need to define objectives, make planning, increase input and concentrate efforts in handling important issues which concern the overall situation of the state and have a long-term effect.
1. Ensuring food security of the state. Food security is a task that we can ignore at no time and need our high and lasting concern. We shall accelerate the building of a food security system which ensures the stable supply and sufficient storage of food, is effective in regulation and control and runs in a highly efficient way. We shall put the food production task at the first place of agricultural construction, stabilize the acreage, optimize the product mix, increase the per unit area yield and improve the comprehensive productive capacity continuously. All regions shall determine their food production objectives and put them into effect, offer more support policies, accomplish their storage tasks and share the food security responsibility of the state. We shall lose no time in putting into effect the food strategic projects, accelerate the building of the core producing areas and support producing areas of food, implement the plan on increasing the food production capacity by more than 50 billion kg, make concentrated input and integrated development on the county basis, and organize the implementation from this year; provide more policy support for main producing areas, establish the interest compensation system in main producing areas, give more financial rewards to counties which produce more major agriculture products and strengthen support to the construction projects of grain industry, speed up efforts to realize the coordination between the increase of grain production, increase of farmers' income and strengthening of financial power, and sufficiently bring into play the farmers' enthusiasm in producing grain and the local governments' enthusiasm in attaching importance to the grain problem; improve the food risk fund policies and gradually cancel the funds in support of main grain production areas; make more efforts to build counties which produce more grain in areas with coordination of production and marketing and major grain marketing areas, and make sure that the area of grain land and the grain self-supply capability remain stable; adhere to opening the market, improve the circulation of grain and realize a good connection between production and marketing; increase the food-saving awareness of the general public, and take measures to save food in the whole process of production and consumption; and strengthen international exchange and cooperation in food and make contributions to improving the global food supply situation.
2. Enhancing the strategic adjustment of the agricultural structure. We shall build a modern agriculture industrial system according to market demands, by making scientific and technological innovations and for improving quality and efficiency; do a good job in making industrial layout planning, scientifically determine the agricultural development emphases of different regions, form industrial belts which have outstanding advantages and clear features, and build processing, circulation, storage and transportation facilities in producing areas with advantages; take effective measures to support the production of oil plants and improve the self-supply capability of edible vegetable oil; encourage advantageous producing areas to develop staple products such as cotton, sugar and potatoes, enhance the intensive and facility-based production of vegetables, fruits, tea leaves, flowers and other horticultural products, and develop characteristic industries and the tourist industry in villages according to the local conditions; accelerate the development of the animal husbandry industry, support large-scale breeding, and make more efforts to improve varieties and prevent epidemic diseases; push forward the healthy breeding of aquatic products, and support and strengthen the deep-sea fishery; develop the forest industry and make the economy of mountainous areas flourish; develop industrialized operation of agriculture, promote the upgrading of the structure of the agro-product processing industry, support leading enterprises, and cultivate famous brands; reinforce the policies of giving financial rewards to counties which produce more major agriculture products and improve the tax policies in support of the development of the agro-product processing industry; make more efforts in the agricultural standardization work and the quality safety of agricultural products, strictly monitor the whole production process including the producing environment, use, producing process and product quality, have the responsible parties bear their respective responsibilities for supervising the quality safety of agricultural products in the process of production, purchase, storage and transportation, processing and distribution, and keep all sub-quality products away from the market; support the development of green food and organic food and make more efforts to protect the registered trademarks and geographical landmarks of agricultural products; and strengthen the agricultural cooperation across the Taiwan Strait.
3. Speeding up scientific and technological innovations in the agricultural sector. The fundamental way for agricultural development shall be a scientific and technological progress. We shall follow the international trend of scientific and technological development, focus on building a modern agriculture, make great efforts to push forward the independent scientific and technological innovation in the agricultural sector, strengthen original innovation, integrated innovation and introduction, digestion, absorption and re-innovation, and further realize the integration of agricultural technologies, the mechanization of labor process and the informatization of production operations; input more in the scientific and technological development of the agricultural sector, set up agricultural scientific and technological innovation funds, support the basic and cutting-edge scientific research of agriculture, and do our best to make breakthroughs in key fields and core technologies; make more efforts in the research, development and integration of agricultural technologies, put stress on supporting the scientific and technological innovation in biotechnology, breeding of fine varieties, high yield planting, water-saving, prevention and control of epidemic diseases and disaster prevention and alleviation, implement key scientific and technological projects on cultivating new varieties of trans-gene organisms, and get a batch of improved varieties which have important application values as soon as possible; meet the requirements of the large-scale, precise and facility-based development of agriculture, accelerate the development of multi-functional, intelligent and economic agricultural equipment and facilities, and focus on making progress in field operation, facility-based planting, healthy breeding, finishing and deep processing and preservation for warehousing and transportation; enhance the development of agricultural information technologies and concentrate our efforts on developing technologies for information collection, precise operation, information management, long-distance digitalization and visualization of rural areas, weather forecasting and disaster warning; deepen the scientific and technological structural reform, accelerate the building of the agricultural scientific and technological innovation system and the modern agricultural industrial technology system, and provide more support for agricultural scientific and technological research institutes and agricultural colleges and universities which bear the nature of public welfare; enjoy the support from big agricultural scientific research projects, key subjects and scientific research bases, make more efforts to build the agricultural scientific and technological innovation team, and cultivate high-level agricultural scientific and technologic professionals, especially those who play the leading role; stabilize and enlarge the team of agricultural scientific and technologic talents, make more efforts to promote and popularize agricultural technologies, and provide technological trainings to farmers; accelerate the transformation of agricultural scientific and technologic achievements, enhance the cooperation of enterprises, universities and research institutes as well as the cooperation of agriculture, science and education, and encourage colleges and universities and scientific research institutes to have technological cooperation with farmers' professional cooperatives, leading enterprises and farmer households in various forms; continue to make a good job of agricultural high and new-technology industries model zones; and give play to the exemplary role of state-owned farms in applying advanced technologies and building a modern agriculture.
4. Making more efforts in agricultural infrastructure construction. The agricultural infrastructures, especially those for irrigation and water conservancy, are important material conditions for modern agriculture. We shall make large-scale land management, do a good job in planning, overall arrangements, and batch-by-batch development, accelerate the transformation of mid- and low-yield farmland, encourage farmers to improve soil, promote projects of measuring soil, making formula and fertilizing, promote protective farming, improve the quality of farmland, and substantially increase the proportion of high-yield and stable-yield farmland; do a good job in water conservancy infrastructure construction, strengthen the treatment and control of great rivers and lakes, build a batch of mid and large-sized backbone water conservancy projects in a concentrated way, accelerate the rebuilding of mid and large-sized irrigation areas and irrigation and drainage pumping stations as well as the construction of water source projects, and do our best to basically finish the task of building support facilities for large-sized irrigation areas and rebuilding them for water saving purposes by the year of 2020; accelerate the process of eliminating the dangers of and reinforcing dangerous reservoirs and make sure that the mid- and large-sized reservoirs and key small-sized reservoirs are kept away from dangers and reinforced before the end of 2010; innovate on the investment mechanism, and encourage farmers to build small-sized farmland water conservancy facilities and small watershed management projects by adopting the method of rewarding instead of providing subsidy; promote water saving irrigation and do well the dry farming model projects; support the development of agro-industry and accelerate the agricultural mechanization process; and make more efforts to build an improved variety breeding system and a wholesale market of agricultural products according to the requirements of high modernization level and wide coverage, and speed up efforts in building a modern food logistics system and a cold chain logistics system for live and fresh agricultural products.
5. Setting up a new-type socialized agricultural service system. Building a socialized service system which covers the whole process of agricultural development and provides all-round, convenient and highly efficient services is necessary for developing modern agriculture. We shall speed up efforts in building a new-type socialized agricultural service system which relies on public service institutions, takes cooperative economic organizations as the basis, leading enterprises as the backbone and other social forces as supplements, combines public welfare services and compensated services and coordinates special-purpose services and comprehensive services; make more efforts to build the public service capability in the agricultural sector, innovate on the management rules, improve the quality of persons, do our best to improve the township or regional public service institutions for promoting agricultural technologies, preventing and controlling plant and animal epidemic disease and supervising the quality of agricultural products of the whole nation within three years, and gradually set up service stations at the village level; encourage supply and marketing cooperatives, farmers' professional cooperatives, professional service companies, professional technological associations, brokers of farmers and leading enterprises to provide various forms of production and operation services; explore the rural market and promote the modernization of the circulation industry in rural areas; improve the agro-product market system, improve the systems for collecting and releasing agricultural information, develop modern agro-product circulation modes, reduce or exempt the charges in the transportation and marketing links, practice green channel policies on a long-term basis, and accelerate the process of building an agro-product marketing network which has low circulation costs and high operation efficiency; and guarantee the supply of agricultural means of production, rectify and regulate the market order of rural areas, and severely punish acts harming farmers or agricultural development.
6. Promoting the sustainable development of agriculture. We shall, according to the requirements for building an ecological civilization, develop a conservation-oriented, recycling and ecological agriculture, and make more efforts to protect the ecological environment; continue to build key forestry projects, extend the implementation period of natural forest protection projects, improve the relevant policies, cement the achievements made in returning farmland to forest, do a good job in tree planting and afforestation, and improve the forest coverage; carry out grassland building and protection projects, turn breed land into grassland, develop grass irrigation projects, and recover the ecological vegetations of grassland; attach greater importance to the protection of water resources; make more efforts in the conservation of aquatic organisms and the release for the purpose of reproducing; have integrated control over the water and soil loss in key watersheds and areas, accelerate the treatment of desertification and landification, and make more efforts in the building of natural reserves; protect precious and rare species and germ plasm resources, and prevent the intrusion of alien plants and animal epidemic diseases and noxious substances; raise compensation funds for forest, grassland, water and soil conservation and other ecological benefits through various channels, and gradually raise the compensation standards; actively cultivate the biomass industry which takes non-oil crops as raw materials, and promote the practices of turning agricultural and forest by-products and castoffs into energy and resources; and promote technologies for saving energy and reducing pollution discharge, and make more efforts in the prevention and control of the industrial and domestic pollution in rural areas as well as the non-point pollution of agriculture.
7. Opening the agricultural sector wider to the outside. We shall adhere to the combination of “introducing in” and “going out”, improve the capability for making overall plans on utilizing the international and domestic markets and resources, and open the agricultural sector wider to the outside in terms of width and depth; follow the principle of encouraging the export of labor intensive and technology intensive products and moderately importing products in short supply due to structural defects, improve the import and export strategy planning and regulation mechanism for agricultural products, and improve the international market research and information services; make more efforts in the import and export inspection, quarantine and supervision of agricultural products, and improve the added value and quality of products with advantages in export; lead foreign investment to the development of modern agriculture; improve systems for foreign businessmen to access to the production of agricultural products and agricultural means of production and make sure that they meet the WTO rules; set up a security check mechanism for the merger of domestic agriculture-related enterprises by foreign capital; make overall plans on foreign agricultural cooperation, cultivate transnational agricultural enterprises, and gradually set up a system for the production, sales and processing of agricultural products in the international market; and actively participate in the making of the international rules and standards for agricultural products trading and contribute to the establishment of a fair and reasonable trade order.
V. Accelerating the Development of Rural Public Services and Promoting the All-round Social Progress of Rural Areas
Building a socialist new countryside and realizing the integrated economic and social development of urban and rural areas require us to expand the coverage of public finance in rural areas and develop rural public services so as to ensure that all farmers enjoy their rights to education, employment, medical and old-age care and housing.
1. Making flourishing and developing the rural culture. The building of socialist culture is an important content and guarantee for the building of a socialist new countryside. We shall promote advanced socialist culture to rural areas, meet farmers' spiritual and cultural demands which increase day by day and improve the ideological and ethical quality of farmers; effectively build a socialist core value system, arm Party members in rural areas and educate farmers with the theoretical system of building a socialist society with Chinese characteristics, and guide farmers to erect the patriotism, collectivism and socialism thoughts; push forward such key cultural projects which bring benefits to the people of rural areas such as the program that makes radio and TV services available in rural areas, the cultural information resources sharing program, the building of comprehensive cultural stations or rooms in all villages and towns, the film projection program in rural areas and the book house program for rural areas, set up a mechanism which guarantees stable input in the cultural building in rural areas, and form a sufficient rural public cultural service system as soon as possible; support the creation and production of cultural products with subject matters of rural areas, hold cultural activities which farmers are willing to participate in and which are convenient for them to participate in, set up a long-term effective mechanism for bringing culture, S&T and health care “to the countryside”, support farmers to start performance teams or other cultural teams, and guide urban cultural institutions to provide services in rural areas; attach importance to enriching the cultural life of migrant workers and help them improve their quality; hold mass-based spiritual civilization activities such as the selection of civilized villages and towns, the selection of civilized country fairs, the selection of civilized households and the provision of volunteer services, and advocate that farmers shall believe in science, keep good faith, abide by law, resist superstition, transform social traditions, observe the basic code of ethics for citizens and live in a healthy and civilized style so as to form social customs which advocate treating the male and the female equally, respecting the old and taking good care of the young, developing friendly neighborhood relationships, becoming rich by hardworking and providing assistance for relieving poverty; make more efforts to protect the cultural relics, immaterial cultural heritage and famous towns and villages with historic cultural values in rural areas; and develop the sports undertaking in rural areas and hold activities for farmers to improve their health conditions.
2. Making great efforts in the education undertaking of rural areas. We shall make great efforts in the education work of rural areas, provide fair education opportunities, improve the scientific and cultural quality of farmers and cultivate new-type farmers who are educated, understand technologies and know how to run business; cement the achievements made in popularizing compulsory education in rural areas, improve the quality of compulsory education, improve the free compulsory education policies and the mechanism safeguarding funds for compulsory education, provide assistance to make sure that children of families with economic difficulties and left-behind children, especially the female ones, have equal opportunity to education and finish school, improve the nutritional status of rural students, and promote the balanced development of compulsory education in urban and rural areas; accelerate the process of popularizing senior high school education in rural areas, place the emphasis on the middle vocational education in rural areas, and gradually realize free middle vocational education; improve the county-level vocational education and training network, input more in the skill training toward farmers, and cultivate practical talents for rural areas; make great efforts to support the education in poverty-stricken areas and ethnic regions; improve the capacity of colleges and universities for transporting talents and providing the relevant services, do a good job in improving the quality of agriculture-related specialties, encourage talented persons to work at the front line of rural areas, pay tuitions and educational loans for students who do their period of service in rural areas, and give priority to them when recruiting postgraduate students and faculty staff; guarantee and improve the wages and working conditions of teachers in rural areas, improve the system for cultivating and training teachers in rural areas, and improve the quality of teachers; improve the mechanism for communication between teachers of rural areas and those of urban areas and continue to assign teachers of urban areas to rural areas for the purpose of improving the teaching quality of rural areas; develop preschool education, special education and further education in rural areas; and make more efforts in distance education and transport quality educational resources to rural areas in time.
3. Promoting the development of the medical and health care in rural areas. The basic medical and health care services concern the well-being of farmers and thus shall cover all farmers as soon as possible. We shall consolidate and develop new-type cooperative medical service systems in rural areas, raise the financing standards, provide more subsidies from the public finance, and stick to the principle of concentrating efforts in guaranteeing the inpatient treatment of serious diseases while paying attention to outpatient medical services; improve the medical assistance system in rural areas; follow the government's leadership, integrate the health care resources of urban and rural areas, set up a three-level medical and health care service network in rural areas, lay emphasis on improving the quality of county-level hospitals, ensure that there is at least one quality hospital in each village or town, support the building of health stations in villages, and provide safe and cheap basic medical services to farmers; make more efforts to build the health care talent team for rural areas, cultivate and train health care talents toward predetermined rural areas free of charge, properly subsidize village doctors, and improve the system that urban doctors assist rural areas; give priority to disease prevention, expand the scope of free public health services and immunity services in rural areas and make more efforts to prevent and control endemic diseases, infectious diseases and zoonosis; improve the dispensation of medicines in rural areas and strengthen the supervision over it; make vigorous efforts to provide services on traditional Chinese medicines and ethnic medicines; hold various kinds of patriotic health campaigns and attach importance to health education; pay more attention to the health care of women and children in rural areas and gradually promote policy of providing aid for those who deliver baby in hospital; stick to the basic state policy of family planning, improve prenatal and postnatal care, stabilize the low-birthrate status in rural areas, improve and implement the systems rewarding and aiding those following the family planning, and effectively solve the problem of high ratio between male and female children born.
4. Improving the social security system in rural areas. We shall stick to the principles of covering as many people as possible, securing the basic livelihood, doing the work from multiple levels and making it sustainable so as to speed up the building of the social security system in rural areas; set up a new-type old-age insurance system in rural areas according to the requirements of combining individual payment, collective allowances and government subsidies; create conditions for working out effective measures for making the urban and rural old-age insurance systems consistent with each other; do a good job in providing social security for farmers whose land is requisitioned and provide social security for them before requisitioning their land so as to make sure that the basic living of farmers whose land is requisitioned is secured for a long term; and improve the basic living security system of rural areas, provide more subsidies from the central finance and the provincial public finance, make sure that all that should be secured are secured, and improve the security standards and subsidy standards continuously. We need to carry out the “five-guarantees” support policy in rural areas in an all-round way to make sure that the support standards reach the average living standard of local villagers; improve the system of providing assistance for disaster-stricken rural residents; implement well the policies of giving special care to families of revolutionary martyrs and servicemen as well as to the injured, disabled and sick veterans; develop the social welfare and charity programs about supporting the old, assisting the disabled, saving the orphaned, aiding those with difficulties and relieving the people in disaster; provide services for the old in rural areas; and make more efforts in the disability prevention and the recovery of the disabled in rural areas and promote the development of projects about the disabled people in rural areas.
5. Improving the infrastructure and environment of rural areas. We shall build rural areas into a beautiful home for farmers and take effective measures to improve the producing and living conditions of farmers; work out village and town building plans in a scientific way; speed up the building of the drinking water safety projects in rural areas and solve the drinking water safety problem existing in rural areas within five years; and make more efforts in road construction of rural areas and make sure that villages and towns are basically covered by asphalt (cement) roads by the end of the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” so that all administrative villages are covered by asphalt (cement) roads and gradually form a passenger transport network which connect the public transportation resources of rural areas with those of urban areas and provide convenient and express services. We need to enhance the energy construction of rural areas, increase the population covered by power network, and promote renewable energy technologies such as biogas, straws, small hydropower stations, wind energy and solar energy so as to form a clean and economic energy system in rural areas; carry out clean projects in rural areas, accelerate the reformation of water supply, kitchens, toilets and pigsties, and treat garbage in a concentrated way so as to improve the sanitary conditions and living environment of rural areas; promote the integration of power network, telecommunication network and internet so as to give play to the role of informatization in serving agricultural development; develop postal services in rural areas; and improve the public utility maintenance mechanism in rural areas, and improve the comprehensive utilization efficiency of public utilities.
6. Enhancing the poverty alleviation and development of rural areas. Doing well the poverty alleviation and development work at a new stage is of great significance to making sure that all people share the achievements of reform and development, and thus it shall be taken as a long-term task with historical significance. We shall improve the poverty alleviation strategies and policies, stick to the guideline of alleviating poverty by development, and realize the consistency between the minimum living security system for rural areas and the poverty alleviation and development policies; practice the new poverty alleviation standards, cover all low-income persons in rural areas with the poverty alleviation policies, and take solving the problem of food and clothing of people under the poverty line and casting off poverty and making them stably better off as soon as possible as the first task in the poverty alleviation and development at the new stage; focus on improving the self-development capability of the poverty-stricken population and provide social assistance for the poverty-stricken population with no labor power or having lost labor power; provide more support for the development of old revolutionary areas, ethnic minority areas, border areas and poverty-stricken areas; and continue the one-to-one poverty alleviation work of the Party and government bodies and the west-east poverty alleviation cooperation, give full play to the active role of enterprises, schools, scientific research institutes, army and other social circles in poverty alleviation and development, and strengthen international exchange and cooperation in this regard.
7. Improving the capability of rural areas for disaster prevention and alleviation. The rural areas of China have many natural disasters which always affect a large range of area and rural areas are always weak in preventing and fighting against disasters, so we must take effective measures for disaster prevention and alleviation in rural areas. We shall strengthen the pre-warning of disastrous weather, geological disaster and earthquake monitoring and enhance the monitoring level and improve the response plan. We shall make more efforts to cultivate the professionals, improve the capability for emergency rescue, publicize and popularize knowledge about disaster prevention and alleviation, and improve the capability of rural areas for handling disasters and the capability of farmers for dodging disasters and saving themselves; input more in building facilities for preventing flood, controlling water logging and fighting against droughts and improving the capability for giving warnings, speed up the rebuilding of dilapidated houses in rural areas, improve the disaster prevention capability of the road, power supply, water supply and communication facilities of rural areas, improve the quality of schools, hospitals and other public facilities of rural areas, and carry out the safety standards and responsibilities; do our best in the recovery and reconstruction of rural areas hit by Wenchuan Earthquake, input more, provide one-to-one assistance, mobilize the public forces, accelerate the reconstruction of the houses of farmers affected by the earthquake, do a good job in rebuilding the production facilities of agriculture, and recover the production and economy of rural areas as soon as possible; and take comprehensive measures to restore and improve the ecological environment of disaster areas as soon as possible.
8. Strengthening the social management of rural areas. We shall stick to the principle of serving and relying on farmers, improve the social management rules for rural areas, make more efforts to build rural communities and maintain the social harmony and stability of rural areas. We need to improve the mechanism for protecting the rights and interests of farmers as advocated by the Party and the government, diversify the channels for expressing social situations and public opinions in rural areas, do a good job in handling the letters and visits of complaint in rural areas, make more efforts in people's mediation, and solve and eliminate contradictions and disputes in time. Officials of rural areas shall make door-to-door visits to make sure that contradictions and problems are solved at the grassroots level and eliminated in infancy. We need to launch intensive campaigns to ensure public security, make more efforts in the judicial and public security work of rural areas, improve the police services in rural areas, practice mass prevention and mass treatment, and maintain public order in a comprehensive way; set up and improve emergency rules for rural areas, and improve the crisis handling capability of rural areas; consolidate and develop equal, united, interdependent and harmonious socialist relations between nationalities; carry out the basic policies of the Party on the religious work in an all-round way, and administer the religious affairs according to law; combat against taking advantage of religious reasons or forces to intervene in the public affairs of rural areas, stand firm in cracking down upon cult organizations, and combat underworld and vicious forces.
VI. Strengthening and Improving the Party's Leadership and Providing Strong Political Guarantee for Promoting the Reform and Development of Rural Areas
The key of the work on promoting the reform and development of rural areas lies in the Party. We shall focus on the building of the ruling capacity and progress of the Party to enhance the Party building work in rural areas in an all-round way with the spirit of reform and innovation, and hold activities of learning and practicing the scientific view of development, improve the creativity, cohesiveness and fighting strength of the Party organizations at all levels so as to improve the Party's leadership in rural areas.
1. Improving the mechanism for the Party's leadership in rural work. We shall reinforce the rural work leadership mechanism under which the Party committees lead the rural work in a unified way, the Party and the government make joint efforts in this regard, the departments in charge of the overall rural work organize and coordinate the relevant issues and other relevant departments assume their respective responsibilities. The Party committees and the governments at all levels shall put the rural work on agenda, follow the strategic thought that rural work shall be the most significant point of the work of the whole Party in policy making, work arrangements, financial input and equipment of officials, make more efforts to investigate and research the theoretical and practical problems existing in the reform and development of rural areas, and stick to the principles of adjusting measures to local conditions, providing classified guidance and being creative. The major leaders of the Party committee and the government shall take charge of the rural work in person, the Party committees of provinces, cities and counties shall assign special persons to be in charge of the rural work, and the Party committees of counties (cities) shall place the emphasis of their work as well as their focus on the rural work. It is required to strengthen the building of the departments in charge of the overall rural work and set up an agriculture administration mechanism which has clarified functions and duties, uniform rights and responsibilities and functions well enough. We shall pay attention to doing a good job in selecting the leaders of the Party committees and the governments of counties and villages, especially those in charge. We shall follow and improve the system of provincial governors' responsibility for the “rice bag” and the system of city mayors' responsibility for the “shopping basket”. We shall improve the officials performance evaluation system which embodies the scientific view of development and correct view to political achievements and take such items as grain production, increase of farmers' income, arable land protection, environmental treatment, harmony and stability as important contents for evaluating the performance of local leaders, especially those in counties (cities). We shall support the performance of functions and duties by the NPC and the CPPCC and give play to the positive role of democratic parties, mass organizations and social groups so as to jointly promote the reform and development of rural areas.
2. Strengthening the building of grassroots organizations in rural areas. The grassroots organizations in rural areas form the basis for the Party's work in rural areas. We shall build Party organizations into a strong leadership core that enhances scientific development, leads farmers to become rich, has close connections with the mass and maintains the stability of rural areas by placing the emphasis on building the leaders team, seeking guarantee from the improvement of Party organizations and taking the three-stage connecting creation activity. We need to reform and improve the measures for selecting the leaders of the grassroots organizations in rural areas, do a good job in building the organizations at the village level by focusing on the building of the Party organizations at the village level, lead and encourage such organizations as the villagers' committees, collective economic organizations, the communist youth leagues, women's representative meetings and militia organizations as well as the labor unions of township and village enterprises to do their work according to laws, regulations and rules. We shall also innovate on the form of the Party's grassroots organizations in rural areas, promote the practice of setting up Party organizations in rural communities, professional farmers cooperatives, professional associations and industrial chains, strengthen the Party's work among migrant workers, improve the mechanism of mutual assistance between the Party's grassroots organizations in urban areas and those in rural areas, form a new pattern of grassroots Party building which is unified in urban and rural areas, lose no time in building sites for organizations at the village level to hold activities and do the best to cover all administrative villages in two years.
3. Strengthening the building of the grassroots official's team in rural areas. Building a grassroots officials team for rural areas which keeps good faith, dedicates to work, has strong capability and has good moral characters is of great significance to doing well the rural work. We shall do our best to diversify the sources of grassroots officials in rural areas, improve their quality, solve their worries back at home and make them work with more enthusiasm; pay attention to selecting officials from persons good at earning money, veterans and farmers returned from employment in urban areas; guide graduates of colleges and universities to assume posts in rural areas and carry out the program of bringing at least one graduate of colleges and universities to each village; encourage the excellent young officials of Party organizations, government organs, enterprises and public institutions to go to villages to offer assistance; make more efforts to enroll civil servants as well as leaders of villages and towns from excellent village officials; try the practice that the secretaries of Party organizations hold posts in other villages; and guarantee the funds for the building of grassroots organizations in rural areas, pays to officials of villages, old-age pension, and trainings toward Party members and officials by financial transfer payment or subsidies from the Party fees; integrate the training resources, train grassroots officials in rural areas, and improve their capability for leading farmers in building a new socialist countryside; and firmly carry forward the modern distance education for Party members and officials in rural areas and do our best to basically cover all villages in two years.
4. Strengthening the building of the Party members' team of rural areas. We shall consolidate and develop the achievements made in the activities of keeping the advanced nature of Party members, do a good job in developing new Party members, improve the education administration of Party members, increase their awareness of acting as Party members, and build a high quality Party members' team of rural areas; improve the grassroots democracy inside the Party, respect the principal status of the Party members, and make sure that the Party members fulfill obligations and exercise rights according to the rules of the Party; organize the Party members in rural areas to learn the theories, guidelines, principles, policies, laws, regulations and operative technologies of the Party; hold activities such as setting posts for the Party members, determining their responsibilities, enabling them to make commitments for their respective posts and do their best to be the excellent; care about the Party members, set up and improve the incentive, care and support mechanism inside the Party, and increase the affinity of the Party organizations; strengthen and improve the management of mobile Party members, and set up and improve the mechanism for the dynamic management of the Party members of both urban and rural areas; make more efforts to develop new Party members among excellent young farmers; and explore new mechanism for developing new Party members and improve the quality of the Party members.
5. Strengthening the building of the working style of the Party and the building of a clean government. Carrying forward the good traditions and working styles of the Party and developing closer Party-mass relationships and officials-mass relationships are important guarantees for doing a good job in the reform and development of rural areas. We shall adhere to the principle of combining education, rules, supervision, reform, correction of bad working styles and punishment with each other, and promote the building of the mechanism for punishing and preventing corruption in rural areas; on the basis of erecting correct beliefs and faiths and improving moral quality, carry out education about fighting against corruption and building a clean government, advocate the style of seeking truth from facts, dealing with concrete matters relating to work, sticking to fairness and decency and working hard, and cement the ideological basis that Party members and officials shall serve the mass and be honest and self-disciplinary; take regulating and checking the use of power as the core, promote the publicity of government affairs, village affairs and party affairs in an all-round way, improve the rules for managing the collective funds, assets and resources of rural areas, and make sure that power, affairs and personnel are all governed by rules; and focus on protecting the rights and interests of farmers, strengthen supervision and inspection on the implementation of the rural policies of the Party, correct the prominent problems which damage the rights of farmers, and seriously investigate agriculture-related violations and give corresponding punishments. The Party members and officials shall use power for the people, show concern for the people and seek benefits for the people, care about the sufferings of the people, listen to the voices of the people, put the wisdom of the people into use, tell the truth, do practical work, seek tangible results, oppose formalism and bureaucratism, and do our best to make practical and effectual achievements.
To realize the grand objective of building a well-off society in an all-round way, the most arduous task lies in rural areas where the most extensive and profound basis is located. All Party members shall closely unite around the Central Committee of the Party with comrade Hu Jintao as the Secretary General, take bold steps in the process of reform, accelerate development and strive to create a new situation of rural work in promoting the great cause of building socialism with Chinese characteristics.