Table of Contents

Foreword by Wang Mengkui Author’s Preface 1. The rise of Township-and-Village Enterprises and changes in national economic patterns (1985) 2. The key to economic development in rural areas is the correct treatment of farmers (1990) 3. New problems facing rural reform and development in the 1990s (1992) 4. Bringing about a gradual modernization of agriculture through management that is based on the household-contracting system (1998) 5. A recommendation to suspend taxes on agriculture for one year, specifically the agricultural tax, the tax on special agricultural products, the tax on pig slaughtering, and the rural levies for education (1999) 6. Recommendations on improving our reform of the grain ‘circulation’ system (April 1999) 7. The turning point in our supply and demand situation for grain, and regulating the structure of agricultural production (2000) 8. Agriculture, the rural economy, and farmers: issues for the next stage (2001) 9. Promoting the building up of a ‘new socialist countryside’ (2005) 10. The current situation with respect to agriculture, rural areas, and farmers in our country (2006) 11. Several issues that deserve attention with respect to our current rural land policies (August, 2006) 12. Recommendations with respect to setting up more universal coverage of the minimum living allowance system in rural areas (November 28, 2006) 13. Coordinate socioeconomic development in urban and rural areas, and set up enduring mechanisms that enable industry to propel the advance of agriculture and that enable urban areas to ‘bring along’ rural areas. Be proactive in finding ways to build up of a new socialist countryside. (2007) 14. Several noteworthy issues with respect to the recent increases in agricultural prices (June, 2007) 15. On the current socio-economic situation with respect to agriculture and to rural areas, and major policy considerations (September 6, 2007) 16. Modernize agriculture in a way that accommodates China’s specific situation (October, 2007)

About the Author

Chen Xiwen (1950-) has made major contributions to economic policy making on agricultural development and the rural economy. Although born in Shanghai he was one of the young people sent down to the countryside in the late 1960s to work in a production and construction corps. He has held a number of government and academic positions, notably director of the Rural Economy Research Department of the State Council and Vice President of the Development Research Centre of the State Council.



The book is published in association with China Development Research Foundation, one of the leading economic and social think tanks in China, where many of the theoretical foundations and policy details of economic reform were formulated.