Organisations representing 84 state farms that are home to 590,000 overseas Chinese have appealed for a doubling of their annual subsidy to 100 million yuan (about HK$93.7 million) to pay pensions and ease their worsening financial plight, according to an official.
The official, from the domestic affairs division of the Overseas Chinese Bureau of the State Council, said five government departments had applied to the Finance Ministry for help.
'We are waiting for a reply,' he said.
The farms, in seven provinces and regions, were set up to settle about 400,000 ethnic Chinese who arrived from Malaya in the 1950s, Indonesia in the 1960s and Vietnam in 1978, fleeing persecution and discrimination.
The settlers were given empty land, mostly in poor and inaccessible regions where no one wanted to live, and the farms were organised like state factories, with their own schools, hospitals, courts and police stations.
The residents were classified neither as urban people nor as farmers but 'state employees in rural areas', and the farms had the same chronic problems as state-owned factories - too many managers, a heavy burden of retired people, poor management and disregard for the market.
In addition, during the 1990s, prices for their main goods - grain, fruit, tea and sugar - were low, while production costs have risen, worsening their financial plight.