Xinhua:
As we all know, agriculture, rural areas and rural residents serve as the ballast of China's economic development, with food security as its top priority. Last year, China had a bumper harvest in grain production. What role has the MOF played in supporting grain production and ensuring food security? And what are the plans going forward? Thank you.
Li Xianzhong:
Thank you for your questions. Food security is a matter of national importance. In 2023, the central government consistently made ensuring national food security a top priority of its financial policies to support agricultural development, providing strong and effective support for China's grain output hitting a record high. Specifically, the central government mainly focused on two aspects:
On the one hand, we optimized policy support by focusing on the foundation of food security. First, we improved and adjusted the central government's transfer payment policies related to agriculture. For example, the grain and oil production guarantee fund was set up, which was mainly used to support the construction of centralized seedling cultivation facilities, including strip-intercropping of soybean and corn. Second, we gave full play to the role of fiscal funds as the main channel, fully implemented the strategy of conserving and using arable land as well as promoting grain output through high technology, allocated 92 billion yuan to support 80 million mu of newly-built and improved high-standard farmland, actively advanced the protection and utilization of black earth, and initiated pilot projects for comprehensive utilization of saline-alkali land. We supported the campaign to revitalize the seed industry and vigorously enhanced the mechanization level in agriculture. Third, we continued to improve the policy systems for prices, subsidies and insurance. We raised the minimum purchase price for wheat, steadily implemented policies relating to farmland fertility protection subsidies and rice subsidies, increased support for major grain-producing counties, and expanded the coverage of full cost insurance and planting income insurance for the three major grain crops to all major grain producing counties across the country. Fourth, we optimized diverse input mechanisms, gave full play to the leveraging role of finance, and actively guided financial and private capital to participate in investment. We launched a pilot program to discount interest on loans for high-standard farmland.
On the other hand, we strengthened financial support focusing on the critical periods of grain production. First, at the key time of spring ploughing, we issued a 10-billion-yuan fund for granting one-off subsidies to crop-growing farmers to stabilize their expectations and reduce the cost of grain planting. Second, to prevent diseases and pests, dry and hot winds, and the collapse of summer wheat, we allocated 1.6 billion yuan to support the "three prevention measures" by crop-dusting in major wheat producing areas. Third, in response to the impact of protracted rainfall during the reap period in Henan province and typhoons and floods in some parts of northern and northeastern China, we accelerated the allocation of disaster relief funds to support wheat harvest and drying while resuming agricultural production in disaster areas, thus effectively reducing food losses due to disasters. Fourth, at the critical stage of fall harvest, 2.4 billion yuan was allocated to support "spraying to promote growth" measures for corn and soybeans in key northern areas to help increase the fall harvest.
In 2024, the central government will increase the central and provincial investment subsidy levels for the construction of high standard farmland, and continue to support campaigns including those for revitalizing the seed industry and complementing the weak links in agricultural machinery equipment. We will continue our efforts to upgrade agricultural socialized services, explore the establishment of an interest-compensation mechanism between grain production and marketing areas, optimize the diversified investment mechanism, and at the same time, strengthen the supervision of capital use and policy implementation to better safeguard national food security.
That's all from me. Thank you.
