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Domestic needs must drive economy: Hu

PHOTO: XINHUA

A RICH HARVEST: China's President Hu Jintao (second right) in a chat with farmers on the corn harvest in a village in the Shaanxi Province on Friday.

BEIJING: Chinese President Hu Jintao has called for creating more domestic needs to maintain stability of the country’s financial market and economic growth.

He made these remarks during a visit to Yulin in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province on October 28-29. Mr. Hu made the visit soon after the 17th CPC Central Committee ended its third Plenary Session, which had announced many measures for farmers.

He told accompanying provincial Party chief Zhao Leji and Governor Yuan Chunqing that China’s economic development was still fine amid the international financial tsunami and the world economy’s slowdown.

The government at all levels and the citizens should have firm confidence and be revivified to strive, he told officials. The government should make more efforts to create domestic needs, especially the consuming needs.

The fundamental status of agriculture in the economy must be intensified, economic growth methods improved and reform policy liberalised, he said.

He promised local corn planters that the government would gradually increase subsidies to croppers and raise the minimum prices of crops purchased from farmers. The Chinese President told the farmers to trust the rural land policy, to lease their contracted farmland or transfer their land-use right. The new policy is expected to boost the scale of operation for farm production and provide funds for farmers to start new businesses.

During his visit to a coal mine, Mr. Hu urged workers and administrators to increase their productivity and give more attention to safety. He encouraged power plant workers to produce more power to be transferred to the eastern part, making more contribution to relieving the power shortage.

Later, on the outskirts of the city, which borders a desert on Loess Plateau, he inspected one of the four forest walls planted to break sand storms and prevent soil erosion.

Meanwhile, China will continue to consider joining all kinds of bailout plans in response to the global financial crisis, the Foreign Ministry has said.

Spokeswoman Jiang Yu said so when asked whether China would contribute to a proposed bailout fund to help countries affected by the financial crisis. She said as an IMF member, China had been providing funds.

“We are willing to continue to actively consider to join in all kinds of bailout plans to the best of our ability,” she said, adding that China would strengthen coordination with all other countries and international financial organisations, including the IMF, to jointly stabilise the global financial market and promote economic growth. — Xinhua

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