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SCMP Reporter

A two-day meeting on rural tax reforms ended yesterday with a call to breathe new life into an experiment to establish a unified system in the countryside, official media reported.

Chaired by Vice-Premier Wen Jiabao and Finance Minister Xiang Huaicheng, the meeting in Jiangsu's Wuxi focused almost exclusively on how to expand the so-called 'tax-for-fees' experiment first tested in Anhui province in March last year.

The meeting was attended by central and local tax officials.

Xinhua said the meeting laid down 'specific requirements' for the coming year and discussed the possibility of expanding the experiment to about one-third of the provinces.

The requirements concentrated on management quality of grassroots governments, their financial health and experience, according to Xinhua.

But the report stressed that the experiment would not be implemented nationwide next year. 'Next year, the experiment can be tested in more provinces but the conditions for full-scale reforms do not exist yet,' Xinhua quoted a decision reached by the meeting's participants as saying.

Provinces not involved were asked to continue 'pilot schemes'.

Introduced by Premier Zhu Rongji in March last year, the reforms - which replaced a host of taxes and fees imposed on rural farmers with a single and unified farm tax set by the central Government - have been described as the most controversial in the countryside for more than two decades.

But Mr Zhu conceded in the summer that the reforms would be slowed down.

Earlier press reports said the reforms were postponed because many local governments in townships and villages were bankrupt.

Cadres reportedly resisted the reforms, claiming they would not be able to govern if they were denied the power to tax farmers.

However, central Government tax officials argued the reforms were essential in reducing the financial burden on farmers and keeping the countryside stable.

The latest call echoed a similar one made almost a year ago, when the leadership called a national finance work meeting in Beijing to accelerate rural tax reforms.



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Xinhua News Agency

Top officials call for rural tax-reform experiment to be expanded

Wen Jiabao

Zhu Rongji