Itinerant vendors in rural areas and peasants selling their own
farm produce in government-run agricultural markets no longer have
to pay management fees.
The State Administration for Industry and Commerce
announced?Thursday at its national working conference that it
had granted an exemption of these fees.
In other moves aimed to help farmers, the administration has
decided to cancel registration fees for agricultural producer
co-operatives, and to scrap registration and managerial fees for
farmers selling their own farm produce in certain
government-approved sites, the conference said.
The administration plans to develop farm goods chain stores and
will increase scientific and technological support to farmers,
according to the conference.
It will tighten control over the entry of farming goods to the
rural market and confiscate fake farming products such as seeds,
pesticides, fertilizers, fodder and animal medicines.
Rural residents' per-capita basic income is only one third the
per-capita disposable income of Chinese city folk. Approximately
23.65 million rural people live in poverty in China -- their annual
per-capita income is no more than 683 yuan (US$88).
(Xinhua News Agency January 5, 2007)