More than 500 village heads from around China gathered Saturday in Dazhai, a well-known village in Shanxi Province, to exchange views on building harmonious rural communities.

The three-day national forum on rural communities construction is aimed to promote exchanges and cooperation among the rural areas in east, central and west China, according to the organizing committee.

The participants will also touch such topics as how to build industrialized villages with distinct characteristics and how rich villages join hands with poor ones in poverty reduction.

As representatives of the 5 million "officials" of 680,000 villages across China, the participants are expected to ink a joint communiqués of Chinese village heads.

Some 200 experts and scholars of rural development and agriculture officials will also attend the forum.

Founded in 2000, the forum is aimed at providing a platform for exchange of experience among the village heads throughout the country so as to increase the influence of the countryside on government policy making.

(Xinhua News Agency September 4, 2005)