Toward a harmonious countryside: rural development survey results of the People’s Republic of China

Lin, Tun (2010): Toward a harmonious countryside: rural development survey results of the People’s Republic of China. Published in: ADB Economics Working Paper Series No. 214 (August 2010)

Abstract

The construction of a New Socialist Countryside (NSC) is among the highlights in the People's Republic of China’s (PRC) 11th Five-Year Plan (2006–2010). The NSC aims to accelerate the development and modernization of the agricultural and rural economy in order to close the widening rural–urban income gap. In an effort to better understand the priorities of and binding constraints to the PRC's rural development, and to aid the development of the NSC, two surveys were undertaken by the Asian Development Bank in six rural areas—Chongqing, Inner Mongolia, Jiangsu, Liaoning, Shaanxi, and Shangdong. The 2007 survey collected village and household information on the first year of the NSC program, and the 2010 survey captured the possible changes after a few years of the program's implementation. A special feature of these surveys is that they allow for comparison of villagers' and village cadres' views on the priorities of the PRC's rural development. This paper summarizes the findings emerging from these surveys, particularly with respect to the challenges and priority areas of the PRC's rural development in 2007 and 2010. Among the key findings are (i) income growth remains the highest priority in the PRC’s rural development agenda; and (ii) lack of capital and lack of necessary job skills are the most binding constraints for growth in agricultural income and nonagricultural income, respectively.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: China; new socialist countryside; rural development; village survey
• Subjects: P - Economic Systems > P3 - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions > P36 - Consumer Economics ; Health ; Education and Training ; Welfare, Income, Wealth, and Poverty; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O18 - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis ; Housing ; Infrastructure; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q1 - Agriculture > Q12 - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets; P - Economic Systems > P3 - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions > P32 - Collectives ; Communes ; Agriculture; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R2 - Household Analysis

References

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