On Sunday, Vice Premier Huang Ju
spoke on the phone to an special village-held Ministry of
Information Industry meeting to congratulate them on the fact that
96 percent of villages in China are now connected to land-based
telephone networks.
The ministry said 49,000 villages now have access
to telephone networks as it met in the prefecture of Yan'an in
northwest China's Shaanxi Province.
Huang spoke highly of the achievement and?said
departments concerned should further improve rural communication
facilities.
He said China has entered a crucial period in
building a well-off society. The fifth plenary meeting of the 16th
Central Committee of the Communist Party of China ?had put
dealing with issues relating to agriculture, rural areas and
farmers at the top of the agenda.
Speeding up construction of rural communication
facilities is an important measure in solving such issues, an
important responsibility for governments and an obligation for
communication departments, he said.
"Over recent years, rural communication development
has made great progress, as more than 40,000 administrative
villages have telephones. Use of telephones will help farmers
broaden their horizons and have easy access to information," Huang
said.
Huang also spoke to Song Youfu, a farmer of Ansai
County in Yan'an, asking about local economic development and the
living status of local farmers, as well as the development of local
telecommunications and transport.
He said the government would continue to introduce
favorable policies to boost rural communications so that an
increasing number of farmers can afford to use the telephone and to
narrow the gap between city and countryside.
(Xinhua News Agency November 28, 2005)