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World Bank loan aids agriculture
(China Daily)
Updated: 2005-04-30 08:38
The World Bank has approved a loan of US$100 million to help China improve
the efficiency and speed of its agriculture industry's technological
development, the bank announced on Friday.
The Agricultural Technology Transfer Project is aimed at developing and
testing innovative models of agricultural technology to generate additional farm
income.
Analysts said the loan comes at a time when the Chinese central government is
attaching increasing importance to agricultural development and upping farmers'
income. Premier Wen Jiabao listed the finding of solutions to agricultural
issues a "top priority of all our work" in his report to the National People's
Congress in March.
"This project is typical of a new generation of innovative projects that the
Chinese Government is asking the World Bank to finance," said Iain Shuker, World
Bank task manager for the project. "In this project, the government is financing
public goods in partnership with commercial entities, thus making more efficient
use of public financing for new technology development and transfers."
He said China's agricultural sector has entered a phase of urgent and
challenging structural transformation. Four major developments indicate such a
transformation, including the slow growth in farmers' income, mounting pressure
on natural resources, changing demand and consumer preferences for food
products, and the pressure applied by China's accession to the World Trade
Organization (WTO).
The World Bank believes a critical bottleneck for the needed transformation
of the agricultural sector is the slow transfer and adoption rate of modern
science, technology and knowledge-intensive agriculture.
The current farming environment in China is characterized by a highly
fragmented production structure, which makes it difficult to expand the use of
new technologies, and for farmers to know of and respond effectively to market
signals, the World Bank said.
The World Bank project aims to help China tackle these challenges with novel
approaches to bring about environments for agricultural technology development
and transfers, as well as create partnerships between technology generating
institutions, private sector industries, and small farmers for the purpose of
increasing rural incomes, according to a World Bank press release.
The State Office for Comprehensive Agricultural Development is the domestic
agency responsible for the project.
The loan for the project will mature over 20 years, with a five year grace
period.
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