Chinese township enterprises are expected to employ more rural
residents in an effort to reduce idle labor force in the countryside,
said the Ministry of Agriculture Friday.
The government
urges more township enterprises to engage in businesses that
will absorb more employees, such as the service industry and
the farm produce processing industry, said Liu Zengsheng,
director of the Bureau of Township Enterprises under the Ministry.
China has witnessed
growing surplus labor in rural areas as it is modernizing
the agricultural sector and also suffering from the depressed
growth of farmers' income.
In the government's
Tenth Five-year Plan, the country aims to have farmers' annual
income rise by 5 percent on average and 40 million rural population
employed in the next five years.
"Township
enterprises, regarded as grassroots businesses in the countryside,
offer the major solution for this problem," said Chen
Naixing, an expert with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Township enterprises
in China have employed 128 million people, equal to almost
half of the idle labor force in rural areas and 33. 7 percent
of farmers' annual net income on average came from township
enterprises last year.
"China has
too many people working for traditional agriculture industries,"
he said, "The modernization of agriculture is doomed
to produce increasing idle labor force."
Agricultural population
in China has engaged 70 percent of the total population, compared
with 10 percent in developed countries.
The government
encourages town ship enterprises to let farmers hold their
shares or lease some collectively owned township companies,
said Liu Zengsheng.
(People's Daily
04/28/2001)
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