Whenever thinking of the company operation, Zhang Quanshou, owner of a major migrant workers agent company, finds him hard to get cheerful.

Based in Shenzhen, a southern Chinese city whose economy has been driven up by export in the past 30 years, Zhang's company usually helps more than 20,000 migrant workers find jobs every year, and the number plunged to 8,000 in 2008, affected by the spreading global economic downturn.

"Numerous migrant are waiting in long lines at the entrance of my company. Just a few months ago, it was factory bosses who had queued there," said Zhang, general manager of the Quanshun Laborer Service Company.

Zhang, deputy to the 11th National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top legislative body, also admits that his condition is far more better than that of the migrant workers.

Affected by the global economic recession, China has undergone negative growth in both import and export since last November, said Chen Deming, minister of commerce, Tuesday at a press conference on the sidelines of the NPC annual session.

Migrant workers, most of whom working on assembly lines, were the hardest-hit group amid the recession.

Government statistics in February showed that about 20 million, or 15 percent of the country's total migrant workers, lost their urban jobs and returned to the countryside.

The Customs statistics show that China's export saw a year-on-year decrease of 17.5 percent and import a decrease of 43.2 percent in January.

"The financial crisis may expand the rural-urban gap in China," said Wen Tiejun, head of the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development,adding that decrease in income has a much larger impact on farmers' spending than urbanites.

A migrant worker's income may account for 80 percent of his family's income, said a NPC deputy Kang Houming,.

For six straight years, the central government has devoted its "No.1 policy document" to agriculture, as a gesture of the importance it attaches to rural development.

Statistics released by the Ministry of Agriculture, however, show another picture: the urban-rural per capita income ratio was 3.33 to 1 in 2007, worse than 2.6 to 1 in 1978, when China started its reform and opening-up drives.

In 2007, the average income for urban residents is 10,000 yuan (about 1,470 U.S.dollars) more than that of rural residents.

Premier Wen Jiabao said in his government work report that in 2009, the government will strive to increase farmers' income by all possible means. The government will also try its best to create more jobs for migrant workers and help them keep their jobs.

The Central Government has proposed to increase its spending on agriculture and rural development to 716.1 billion yuan this year, an increase of 120.6 billion yuan from 2008.

"The government should put more money in agriculture, rural areas, education and medicare, under the background of the financial crisis," said Hou Yibin, member of the NPC national committee, adding that the money will help stimulate domestic demand and reduce rural-urban gaps.

China has started to build a nationwide basic medical insurance system for rural residents to relieve farmers the burden of soaring medical costs.

More than 10 Chinese provinces and municipalities have canceled or eased the household registration system (Hukou), so that migrant workers will have access to more public services that are previously limited to urban residents.

Governments at various levels also took measures to cushion the impact of economic slump on migrant workers, including providing small loans and tax cuts to encourage them start their own businesses.

The All-China Federation of Trade Unions also decided to offer aid to 10 million migrant workers, including vocational training.

Experts have pointed out China's economic structure is the ultimate reason behind the rising urban-rural gap.

China's export-oriented economy has made it increasingly vulnerable to foreign trade. Foreign trade now contributes to 60 percent of China's gross domestic product (GDP), one of the highest in the world. The figures for the United States, Japan and India are around 20 percent.

Yuan Gangming, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that China has been able to maintain a strong growth of exports because the salaries of workers have been kept low.

"This is not a sustainable model of development," said Yuan.

"Though the government has been calling for economic restructuring, enterprises are not motivated because of strong external demand," he said.

Tang Min, deputy secretary general of the China Development Research Foundation, said China should increase its spending on social security to extend the coverage to its huge rural population.

This, he said, will boost domestic demand and stimulate the economy.It will also relieve people's concern over the future and make them willing to spend.

"If handled well, the crisis may turn out to be an opportunity for China to change its economic structure and realize integrated rural-urban development," said Tang.

(Xinhua News Agency March 12, 2009)