China has decided to return 650 million yuan (79 million U.S. dollars) in agricultural tax to farmers hit by natural disasters this year in Anhui Province.
According to local government officials, the money will be returned to farmers at the end of this year by the central and local governments.
Droughts from spring to autumn this year led to a crop failure in this east China province. Mountain floods and waterloggings also occurred there, bringing disarsters to large numbers of farmers.
(People's Daily December 18, 2001)
