Chinese farmers' total taxes and fees were down 31.5 percent per capita in the first quarter of 2005, with the agricultural tax was down 72.8 percent, according to a survey of the National Bureau of Statistics published here Tuesday.

The survey, which covers 68,000 rural households in 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, shows that farmers' per capita income, deducting price factors, increased 11.9 percent, an increase of 2.7 percentage points over the same period of last year.

"The Chinese government adopted effective measures to increase input into agriculture and spares no pains to increase farmers' incomes and improve their lives in the past years," it says.

At the beginning of 2005, the Chinese authorities jointly released a "No. 1 Document," which worked out 27 detailed, substantial measures to ensure financial, administrative and technological support to the agricultural sector, including tax exemption and reduction.

The per capita annual net income for Chinese farmers was 2,936 yuan (about 354 US dollars) in 2004, up 6.8 percent over the previous year, a record growth rate since 1997. Grain output reached 469.5 billion kilograms, up nine percent over the previous year.

Source: Xinhua