"Real money" supports rural revitalization
A strong country must first strengthen its agriculture, and only a strong agriculture can make the country strong.
This year's No. 1 Central Document proceeds from the overall situation of building a socialist modern country in an all-round way, and makes major arrangements for comprehensively promoting rural revitalization.
In building a strong agricultural country, finance plays an important role. By strengthening investment guarantees and optimizing policy supply, it provides strong support for ensuring national food security, stable production and supply of important agricultural products, consolidating and expanding achievements in poverty alleviation, and comprehensively promoting rural revitalization.
Adhere to priority protection
Coordinate and promote rural revitalization subsidy funds of 148.5 billion yuan, water conservancy funds of 94.1 billion yuan, agriculture-related transfer payments of 211.5 billion yuan, and rural comprehensive reform transfer payments of 15.6 billion yuan... By the end of 2022, the central government will intensively issue a series of agriculture-related funds for 2023 in advance .
The "generous" financial investment will provide a strong "food, grass and military supplies" for promoting rural revitalization in the new year.
The central government insists on giving priority to the development of agriculture and rural areas, takes agriculture and rural areas as the priority protection area of the general public budget, actively expands the investment channels of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers", and supports local governments to steadily implement the rural revitalization strategy.
"Finance is the main fund decision-maker and provider of basic public services in urban and rural areas. It should unswervingly insist on giving priority to the development of agriculture and rural areas, strengthen the overall planning of financial resources, optimize the expenditure structure, and maintain necessary Expenditure intensity.” said Shen Xuefeng, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences and secretary-general of the China Rural Finance and Economics Research Association.
Improving support policies for agricultural and rural development and increasing financial investment are fully reflected in a series of "real money" arrangements of the central government in 2022: the stable implementation of the cultivated land fertility protection subsidy policy, and the allocation of cultivated land soil fertility protection subsidy funds of 120.485 billion yuan; Arranged a total of 109.574 billion yuan of funds for the construction of high-standard farmland, supporting 100 million mu of new high-standard farmland across the country; supporting the expansion of effective investment in water conservancy, and arranging funds of 117.8 billion yuan through water conservancy development funds and related government funds; and arranging comprehensive rural reforms The transfer payment was 30.146 billion yuan, supporting all localities to give full play to the role of the comprehensive rural reform platform, and continuing to explore effective paths and demonstration models for financial support for the overall revitalization of the countryside...
The No. 1 Central Document requires that agriculture and rural areas be prioritized for general public budget protection, and that local governments should take responsibility for investment.
"Continue to increase the scale of subsidies from the central government to promote rural revitalization, focus on areas with a poor foundation for rural revitalization, and enhance the endogenous development motivation of poverty-stricken areas and people who have been lifted out of poverty. Aim at the goal that rural areas basically have modern living conditions, and accelerate epidemic prevention, pensions, and education. Public service facilities such as health care, medical and health care, and infrastructure construction such as rural roads, strengthen and improve rural governance, and promote the construction of a livable, business-friendly and beautiful village.” Liu Kun, Minister of Finance, said when deploying the 2023 fiscal work.
While the central government is stepping up the allocation of funds to support rural revitalization in 2023, provinces and cities are also increasing their investment when the contradiction between fiscal revenue and expenditure is relatively prominent.
For example, in 2023, among the provincial general public budget expenditures in Sichuan, 23.82 billion yuan will be allocated for rural revitalization, accounting for 6.9% of the provincial general public budget expenditures; Henan will insist on giving priority to the development of agriculture and rural areas, and a total of 15.79 billion yuan will be allocated at the provincial level , speed up the construction of a strong agricultural province, and solidly promote the overall revitalization of rural industries, talents, culture, ecology, and organizations; Hebei has solidly promoted the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, and the provincial level has allocated 16.13 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5%, to consolidate the achievements of poverty alleviation and accelerate agricultural and rural development. Modernization promotes the transformation of a large agricultural province into a strong agricultural province.
It is reported that in the next step, the central financial support for rural revitalization will continue to be strengthened, including improving the income guarantee mechanism for grain farmers and the compensation mechanism for the interests of major grain producing areas, further improving subsidies for corn and soybean producers, and appropriately increasing the minimum purchase of wheat. Reasonably determine the minimum purchase price level of rice, increase incentives for major grain-producing counties; support the construction of high-standard farmland, implement in-depth efforts to revitalize the seed industry and tackle key agricultural technologies.
"Financial affairs will ensure food production and the supply of important agricultural products as the top priority of the agricultural support policy, continue to support and consolidate and expand the achievements of poverty alleviation and effectively connect with rural revitalization, promote the high-quality development of modern agriculture, and improve the basic public service capabilities of rural areas. Rural revitalization has provided strong support." He Daixin, director of the Financial Research Office of the Institute of Financial and Economic Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said.
Focus on key links
After the victory in the fight against poverty, it is necessary to comprehensively promote rural revitalization. How can finance continue to play its role?
In recent years, the central government has focused on consolidating and expanding the achievements of poverty alleviation and effectively connecting with rural revitalization, increasing investment guarantees, and promoting the realization of a higher level of coordinated regional development.
The No. 1 document of the Central Committee requires the implementation of the policy of consolidating and expanding the achievements of poverty alleviation and the effective connection of rural revitalization; the central government will connect and promote the proportion of rural revitalization subsidy funds used for industrial development to more than 60%, and focus on supporting technology, facilities, marketing, etc. short board.
Statistics show that in 2022, in accordance with the requirements of consolidating and expanding the achievements of poverty alleviation, more efforts should be made, more methods should be found, and support should be given to the horses for a ride, the central government will arrange 165 billion yuan of subsidy funds for rural revitalization in accordance with the principle of only increasing and not decreasing. , an increase of 8.476 billion yuan over the previous year, and will be given priority to areas where the task of consolidating and expanding the results of poverty alleviation is heavy and the foundation for promoting rural revitalization is weak.
The Ministry of Finance, together with relevant departments, issued the guidance on strengthening the connection between the central government and promoting the use and management of rural revitalization subsidy funds, urging and guiding all localities to rely more on development to consolidate and expand the achievements of poverty alleviation, and to further manage and use the connection funds.
It is clearly required that all localities place key counties in a prominent position to consolidate and expand the achievements of poverty alleviation, coordinate and integrate resources from all parties, increase support for key counties, and promote the improvement of shortcomings and the bottom line.
At the same time, further highlight the key points of financial support, give priority to supporting the development of the agricultural and rich agricultural industry, and improve the mechanism for linking the interests of industrial projects.
In addition, overall support will be given to related fields that are conducive to increasing income, helping people who have been lifted out of poverty and monitoring objects to continue to increase their income, supporting local conditions to make up for necessary small-scale public welfare infrastructure shortcomings such as rural water supply facilities, and improving the production and living conditions of people in poverty-stricken areas.
Financial investment continues to increase, and the efficiency of capital use is crucial, and every penny must be spent wisely.
In recent years, the financial department has maintained a high-pressure situation on the supervision of connection funds, carried out performance evaluation work, and played the role of "baton" of performance evaluation.
At the same time, strengthen the use of performance evaluation results. When allocating connection funds, provinces with better performance evaluation results will be rewarded according to regions, and the reward funds will be used to support the consolidation of connection work in accordance with the fund management method.
The National Fiscal Work Conference made it clear that this year, we will continue to increase the scale of subsidies from the central government to promote rural revitalization, focusing on areas with a poor foundation for rural revitalization, and enhancing the endogenous development motivation of poverty-stricken areas and people who have been lifted out of poverty.
"Comprehensively promoting rural revitalization is an important task for building a strong agricultural country in the new era. While further increasing the central financial budget arrangement and funding guarantee, it is necessary to refine the funding policy, focus on key areas, key tasks, and key links, and make good use of management It is good to connect funds and improve the efficiency of fund use." Shen Xuefeng said.
Promote multiple investment
Recently, Jiangxi Province successfully issued the second batch of government bonds in 2023 at the Shanghai headquarters of China Central Depository and Clearing Co., Ltd., all of which are new special bonds, including special bonds for rural revitalization exceeding 850 million yuan.
The No. 1 document of the Central Committee proposes to include qualified rural revitalization projects in the scope of local government bond support in the deployment of "improving the multi-investment mechanism for rural revitalization"; to support the establishment of rural revitalization funds in a market-oriented manner; to improve the linkage between government investment, finance and social investment It encourages qualified projects to be bundled and implemented by market entities in accordance with regulations, and leverages financial and social capital to invest more in agriculture and rural areas in accordance with market principles.
Shen Xuefeng believes that rural revitalization requires a huge amount of funds, and it is necessary to give full play to the role of financial funds in "four or two" to leverage the power of financial capital and social capital to build a linkage mechanism between fiscal investment and financial and social investment.
"In recent years, financial tools have become more abundant and three-dimensional in supporting rural and agricultural development. They are not only direct assistance, but also help rural industrial development and agricultural quality improvement through the combination of finance and finance, and the connection between government investment and social investment. At present, rural development still requires a large amount of infrastructure investment, and when local government bonds are invested in agriculture-supporting projects, they are prioritized and quickly implemented, providing a strong impetus for rural revitalization." He Daixin said.
In recent years, local government bonds, whether general bonds or special bonds, have focused on agriculture, rural areas and rural revitalization as key areas of support.
Statistics show that from 2016 to 2020, a total of 1,152.4 billion yuan of new local government bonds across the country were used to support poverty alleviation, relocated poverty alleviation, agriculture, forestry, and water conservancy, among which 379.9 billion yuan in 2020, accounting for 8.3% of the year's issuance .
At the same time, agricultural insurance has increasingly become the "reassurance pill" for farmers and the "stabilizer" for agricultural production.
Statistics show that in 2022, my country's agricultural insurance will provide 5.46 trillion yuan of risk protection for 167 million rural households.
The scale of agricultural insurance premiums for the year was 119.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 23%.
Among them, the central government allocated agricultural insurance premium subsidies of 43.453 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 30.3%. Financial support played a key role in the development of agricultural insurance.
Experts believe that to comprehensively promote rural revitalization, it is necessary to make up for a series of infrastructure shortcomings, improve the basic public service capacity and equalization level of urban and rural areas, and special bonds such as rural revitalization, agriculture, forestry and water conservancy have become an important path to activate and leverage social capital to increase investment.
"It is necessary to stimulate the enthusiasm of financial capital to grant credit to agriculture and rural areas, and form a trinity fiscal and financial support system of 'finance + guarantee + insurance'." Shen Xuefeng said.
(Economic Daily reporter Zeng Jinhua)