Promoting Sustainable Increase of Farmers' Income

In order to foster a batch¹ of big wholesales² markets and distribution enterprises of agricultural products in domestic and international markets, to build up a modern distribution system of agricultural products in line with international practice, to guarantee the distribution safety and promote sustainable increase of farmers' income, the Ministry³ of Commerce recently planned to implement⁴ Markets Project of Two Hundred in the nation. The Project mainly included the following 2 contents:

　　1, Attaching importance to reconstruct 100 big wholesales markets of agricultural markets; 2, Striving to foster 100 big distribution enterprises of agricultural markets.

　　The Ministry will cooperate with relative departments to select about 100 national or trans-regional wholesales markets with a broader business scale and a strong driving power, will focus on the enhancement of infrastructure⁵ construction like logistics, distribution, market information, inspection⁶ and testing, transaction halls, storage and killing⁷ areas of live birds. Meanwhile, the Ministry will choose about 100 competitive distribution enterprises of agricultural products and cooperation organizations in rural distributions, attach importance to the promotion⁸ of standardization⁹ and scales of agricultural products distribution, improve the marketing¹⁰ level of agricultural products with high competitiveness, and seek for and push forward the management mode of integration¹¹ of trade, industry and agriculture and of domestic and foreign trade.

　　3-year goals set up by the Ministry on Markets Project of Two Hundred were: Starting from 2006, the Ministry will make efforts to finish the upgrade and innovation of about 2000 wholesales markets of agricultural products, equal to half of total in the nation, through mutual¹² promotion by central and local governments and demonstration¹³ of key markets and enterprises so as to lower the cost of agricultural products distribution and reduce the wastage in the process of distribution. Over 30% agricultural products were on sale by about 300 big distribution enterprises of agricultural products nationwide through supermarkets, which make more competitive agricultural products enter into the international marketing network of MNCs.

　　Marketing Project of Two Hundred, as the important measure taken by the Ministry of Commerce to promote the construction of a new socialist¹⁴ countryside, was beneficial to enlarge the sales ratio of high-quality agricultural products and improve the distribution efficiency of such products, and was in favor of providing more employment opportunities, expediting the transfer of surplus labor¹⁵ force in rural areas and promoting added value of agricultural products in the process of distribution to push forward the sustainable and steady increase of farmer's income.

　　In order to guarantee a good start to the Markets Project of Two Hundred, the Ministry of Commerce required administrative departments of commerce at all levels to study and work out implementation plan according to economic features of various areas to do better the arrangements and project implementation work, adjust well the plan with urban commercial network and the connection with local economic and social development plan