2. Steady progress was made in building a new socialist countryside.
Policies to favor farmers were improved. The agricultural tax and tax on
agricultural specialties were abolished across the country. This was in addition
to other previously rescinded agriculture-related taxes and charges, including
the butchery tax and animal husbandry tax, thereby relieving the financial
burden on farmers by about 125 billion yuan each year. We provided grain farmers
with direct subsidies, subsidies for growing superior varieties of crops and
purchasing machinery and tools as well as general direct subsidies for
agricultural supplies. Total subsidies given out last year exceeded 30 billion
yuan. We also increased transfer payments to major grain-producing counties and
those with limited financial resources, granting a total of 23.5 billion yuan in
rewards and subsidies. The imposition of a minimum grain purchase price was
extended from rice to include wheat. Compensation for the expropriation of
farmland for large and medium-sized water conservancy and hydroelectric projects
was also substantially increased.
Investment to support agriculture continued to increase. A total of 339.7
billion yuan from the central government (excluding12 billion yuan of general
direct subsidies to grain growers deriving from special surcharges on oil sales)
was spent on agriculture, rural areas and farmers, a year-on-year increase of
42.2 billion yuan. Working and living conditions in rural areas were improved. A
total of 6 billion yuan from the central government, triple the amount for the
previous year, along with 6.9 billion yuan from local governments was spent on
safe drinking water projects in the countryside, benefiting 28.97 million rural
residents. The central government also invested 2.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year
increase of 150%, and local governments invested 1.56 billion yuan in building
rural methane facilities to serve an additional 4.5 million families. In
addition, 19 billion yuan from the central government and 24 billion yuan from
local governments were invested in the rural road upgrade project, rebuilding
and extending 120,000 kilometers of asphalt or cement roads to connect more
townships and villages. We encouraged retailers to open stores in more townships
and villages, thus setting up more than 100,000 stores in the countryside.
Agricultural structure was further improved. Grain acreage rose by 1.1
million hectares from the previous year to reach 105.38 million hectares. Once
again, we had a rich grain harvest with total output amounting to 497.46 million
tons, 13.44 million tons more than the year before. High-quality special wheat
acreage accounted for 55.2% of China's total wheat acreage and the acreage of
high-quality rice accounted for 69.1% of total rice acreage, up6 percentage
points and 4 percentage points year-on-year respectively. Cotton and sugar
output increased by 17.8% and 16.2%respectively, and the output of meat, milk
and aquatic products increased by 4.6%, 18% and 2.8% respectively.
