RURAL POLICY GETTING A LOT OF ATTENTION AT NPC,

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIJING 001615 SIPDIS SIPDIS USDOC FOR 4420 TREASURY FOR OASIA/ISA - DOHNER/CUSHMAN STATE PASS USTR FOR STRATFORD, WINTER, ALTBACH STATE PASS CEA FOR BLOCK STATE PASS FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD FOR JOHNSON/SCHINDLER; SAN FRANCISCO FRB FOR CURRAN/LUNG; NEW YORK FRB FOR DAGES/CLARK E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/12/2017 TAGS: ECON EAGR EFIN PGOV CH SUBJECT: RURAL POLICY GETTING A LOT OF ATTENTION AT NPC, BUT SPENDING INCREASE MARGINAL REF: A. (A) BEIJING 1482 ¶B. (B) 06 BEIJING 24338 AND PREVIOUS ¶C. (C) BEIJING 1081 Classified By: CLASSIFIED BY MINISTER COUNSELOR FOR ECONOMIC AFFAIRS RO BERT LUKE; REASON 1.4 (B) AND (D). SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) Government leaders have once again made rural policy a focus of the "Two Meetings," as they attempt to address concerns about the growing urban-rural income gap and the lack of social services in the countryside. Premier Wen Jiabao, in his March 5 speech, devoted considerable attention to rural problems and proposed several new measures to improve education, health care, and social welfare in rural areas (Ref A). CPPCC members said the Central Government will need to overcome sensitive problems such as misuse of resources, illegal land seizures, and protection of arable land in order to promote comprehensive rural reform. A leading rural expert said that the March 2007 legislative sessions illustrate that the government's rural policy is moving in the right direction, but development of rural institutions such as village banks and farmer cooperatives holds the best hope for rural development. Central Government spending on rural policy will again increase in 2007 but not necessarily as much as advertised. END SUMMARY. GOVERNMENT WORK REPORT AGAIN EMPHASIZES RURAL POLICY -------------- -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Premier Wen Jiabao, in his presentation on the Government Work Report at the opening of the National People's Congress (NPC) on March 5, continued the current leadership's emphasis on rural policy, stating that developing modern agriculture and building the New Socialist Countryside would again be one of the government's top priorities (Ref A). The Premier declared that 2006 was a landmark year for China's rural policy, as the Central Government eliminated the agricultural tax and increased rural spending by RMB 42.2 billion to RMB 339.7 billion in the first year of the New Socialist Countryside policy (Ref B). ¶3. (SBU) During his speech, Wen announced five primary goals for developing modern agriculture and promoting the building of the New Socialist Countryside in 2007: (1) ensuring the steady development of grain production; (2) raising the overall production capacity of agriculture; (3) redoubling efforts to boost rural infrastructure development; (4) increasing rural incomes; and (5) promoting the training of people with skills needed in the countryside. Wen announced that Central Government spending on work related to agriculture, rural areas and farmers would increase by 15.3 percent from RMB 339.7 billion to RMB 391.7 billion (approximately USD 50 billion). ¶4. (SBU) As it did in 2006, much of the Government Work Report focused on increasing social spending in education, health care, and social welfare. Among the new initiatives in 2007: --Allocate RMB 223.5 billion (USD 29 billion) for free rural compulsory education to ease the financial burden of 150 million rural households. --Increase Central Government funding from RMB 4.3 billion to RMB 10.1 billion (USD 1.3 billion) to expand the trial area of the Rural Cooperative Medical Insurance program to cover 80 percent of all rural counties. --Establish a rural social welfare system (dibao) based on the urban model to set up a nationwide basic minimum cost of living allowance system for rural residents. CPPCC: IMPROVING LIVELIHOODS IN THE FACE OF CHALLENGES -------------- -------------- ¶5. (SBU) On March 6, four members of the Committee for Economic Affairs of the Chinese People's Political BEIJING 00001615 002 OF 003 Consultative Conference (CPPCC) broadly endorsed the Central Government's rural policy. Justin Lin Yifu, Director of the China Center for Economic Research at Beijing University, said that the government must remain focused on raising farmers' incomes and improving their livelihoods. He said that promotion of modern agriculture -- as outlined in the 2007 Number One Document (Ref C) -- is one pillar of rural development with measures to increase the number of non-farm employment opportunities being the other. Chen Yaobang, a former Vice Minister of the State Planning Commission, added that social welfare concerns remain an important component of the government's rural policy. Chen said extending the basic social welfare system (dibao) to rural areas will help the many farmers in Central and Western China who struggle in situations with "no land, no job, and no social security." ¶6. (SBU) The CPPCC members said the policies outlined in the Government Work Report also would address more sensitive issues such as local government misuse of funds, land seizures, and threats to arable land. Lin Yifu said the Central Government needs to crack down on local officials who utilize New Socialist Countryside funding to build model villages. Local officials who promote the New Socialist Countryside policy by building new villages obviously have misinterpreted the intention of the policy, he said. Zhang Baowen, Vice Minister of Agriculture, said the Central Government must also punish local officials who illegally seize farmers' land. Land should only be reallocated according to government regulation rather than seized by local officials who stand to profit, Zhang said. Illegal land seizures would be a focus of the Central Government's policy in 2007 because of concerns about the loss of arable land, he added. ¶7. (SBU) Wang Zhibao, a former Director of the State Forestry Administration, stated that China faces a growing conflict between the need to simultaneously increase grain output and incomes. As grain output rises, rural incomes tend to fall, Wang said. In order for farmers to increase their incomes, they must grow other crops, he said, but as cash crop production increases, grain production decreases. Wang and Zhang both emphasized that the Central Government must adopt strategies to prevent the country's acreage of arable land from decreasing further in the name of urbanization and economic development, and they pointed to a statement in the Government Work Report that reiterated China's need to hold a minimum amount of arable land that cannot be converted to other uses. FUNDING AND ATTENTION ARE GOOD NEWS, BUT PROBLEMS REMAIN -------------- -------------- ¶8. (C) Wen Tiejun, Dean of the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development at the People's University (Renmin Daxue),told Econoff on March 6 that the RMB 52 billion (USD 6.7 billion) increase in funding for the New Socialist Countryside in 2007 is good news, but maintaining high levels of rural spending over the long-term (ten years or more) will be a challenge for the Central Government. Wen said that funding for rural areas also continues to be misused, either intentionally or unintentionally, by local officials charged with implementing the policy. County level officials, in particular, need more training in how to utilize the resources and how to manage land in their districts. Counties, however, remain financially strapped because of the elimination of the agricultural tax, and they have little alternative but to sell farmers' land for government profit, Wen said. ¶9. (C) Wen Tiejun, who previously met with Wen Jiabao in 2004 and 2005 to offer advice on rural policy, said that the most encouraging developments at local levels are not measures the government has implemented but reforms that have been launched allowing other institutions to fill the gap left by government in the shift from a planned to a market economy. Wen Tiejun agreed that one of the most important components of China's push for modern agriculture would be rural financial reform (Ref C),and he hopes Rural Credit Cooperative (RCC) reform, together with the launch of village banks and the increasing availability of microfinance, will help farmers gain access to credit. A long-time proponent of BEIJING 00001615 003 OF 003 rural cooperatives, Wen Tiejun said he also is encouraged by the new Rural Cooperatives Law, which provides a framework for farmers to choose themselves to work together with their neighbors and create economies of scale for their products. COMMENT: MORE OF THE SAME IN 2007 -------------- ¶10. (C) One year after the March 2006 session of the NPC formally launched the New Socialist Countryside policy as part of the 11th Five-Year Plan, officials at the 2007 NPC and CPPCC continue to focus much of their attention on rural policy. It is worth noting, however, that in fiscal terms, the 15.3 percent increase in Central Government expenditure on the New Socialist Countryside in 2007 barely keeps pace with the proposed 14.4 percent increase in total expenditures at the Central Government level. Spending on agriculture, farmers and rural areas as a share of Central Government expenditure will increase only marginally from 14.46 percent to 14.57 percent. Remittances from rural-to-urban migrants and reform of rural financial institutions most likely will have a greater impact on rural development than will Central Government spending. RANDT