Ministry of Agriculture pushes for continuous improvement of national agricultural financial work service levels
On September 29-30, the National Agricultural Financial Work Conference was held in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China. Focusing on the goals of agricultural and rural economic development during the “13th Five-Year Plan” period, the conference clarified the support directions and priorities of agricultural financial work, put forward clear requirements for innovating ideas on agricultural financial work and raising the level of agricultural financial work, and made specific arrangements for the current key tasks of agricultural financial reform and innovation. Vice Minister of Agriculture Zhang Taolin attended the conference and delivered a speech.
Zhang Taolin pointed out that during the “13th Five-Year Plan” period, agricultural and rural work stands at a historically high starting point, and agricultural fiscal support should focus on increasing efforts in six areas: consolidating and enhancing basic production capacity, agricultural structural adjustment, resource and ecological protection, industrial integration and development, cultivating and strengthening new types of business entities, and agricultural informatization construction.
Zhang Taolin emphasized that the “13th Five-Year Plan” period is not only a period of challenges for providing agricultural financial support and guarantees, but also a critical period for reform and innovation, and moreover a period of breakthroughs through proactive action. Agricultural financial departments at all levels should closely focus on the central task of accelerating agricultural modernization, highlight the general approach of “stepping up reform and improving efficiency through innovation,” take increasing investment as the overall goal, take reform and innovation as the overall path, and take reducing costs and improving efficiency as the overall lever, and focus on raising the level of agricultural financial work from four aspects: first, innovate support concepts, give full play to the decisive role of the market in allocating resources and better play the role of the government, and properly handle the relationship between the central and local governments; second, innovate support methods, and promote the trinity interaction of industrial policy, fiscal and tax policy, and financial and insurance policy; third, innovate management models, and focus on the three key measures of precision, integration, and performance; fourth, innovate team building, and comprehensively raise the level of agricultural financial modernization from the three dimensions of concept, capability, and spirit.
Zhang Taolin emphasized that at present it is necessary to focus on ten key tasks: fully implement the reform of the agricultural “three subsidies” policy; steadily advance the reform of the fishery fuel price subsidy policy; accelerate the launch of the reform of the animal disease prevention subsidy policy; accelerate the healthy and sustainable operation of the agricultural credit guarantee system; promote innovation in the agricultural insurance system, mechanisms, and products; actively expand new channels for agricultural investment and financing; effectively promote the substantive integration of agriculture-related funds; steadily advance performance management of special fiscal funds; strengthen and standardize departmental budget project management; and solidly carry out special rectification of prominent problems in the use of funds for strengthening agriculture and benefiting farmers.
The conference specially arranged policy interpretation training on fiscal support for agriculture, rural finance, and agricultural insurance. Responsible comrades from the agriculture (agriculture and animal husbandry) departments (commissions) of 6 provinces (autonomous regions) made exchange speeches at the conference, and delegates also conducted on-site inspections of Ant Financial, the Agricultural Public Service Center of Pingyao Town, Yuhang District, Zhejiang Province, China, and a demonstration site for beautiful rural construction.