Fourth, we will promote the development of modern agriculture. We are putting greater emphasis on expanding production. The central government will allocate 500 million yuan to increase application of modern agricultural technology. We will allocate 900 million yuan in subsidies for trials to test soil to determine the correct fertilizer formula. We will allocate 300 million yuan in subsidies to promote the industrialization of agriculture and development of processing capacity for agricultural products. We will allocate 11.5 billion yuan for comprehensive development of agriculture and guide both local governments and society to increase funding in this area to raise the overall production capacity and productivity of agriculture. We will allocate 1 billion yuan to improve the mechanism of operations run by the local people and subsidized by the government and support the construction of small-scale irrigation and water conservancy projects. We will support the sound development of the livestock industry and promote agricultural restructuring. We will allocate 1.1 billion yuan to support job training for rural laborers so they can find nonagricultural employment and training for farmers so they can learn modern agricultural techniques and become a new type of farmer. The end result will be overall improvement in the quality of the workforce in agricultural production.

Fifth, we will expand the scope of trials of comprehensive rural reform. We will encourage provincial-level localities with the proper conditions to undertake trials of comprehensive rural reform at the provincial level, and encourage those where conditions are not yet right to expand trials at the municipal or county level. We need to conscientiously work to reduce debt at the village level, expand the scope of trials to pay off village debt, set up an incentive and restraint mechanism and give priority to paying off the debt for public service programs such as compulsory education in rural areas. We need to fully implement the policy of reforming taxes and fees for state-owned farms.

Sixth, we will develop a new mechanism to fund efforts to alleviate poverty through development. Allocations to fight poverty will total 14.4 billion yuan, an increase of 700 million yuan over the total for 2006. We will review and improve our work in the trial of setting up mutual assistance development funds to help poor villages. Based on the results of the trial, we will actively seek ways to set up an incentive distribution mechanism for poverty alleviation funds and a mechanism for determining the eligibility of counties for funds to make poverty alleviation through development work more effective.

Seventh, we will support the development of cultural programs in rural areas. The central government will allocate 17.3 billion yuan to support culture, sports and mass media, an increase of 4.713 billion yuan or 37.4 percent over 2006. It will allocate 2.5 billion yuan to speed up implementation of the project to extend radio and TV coverage to every village and increase the number of localities able to receive central government radio and television programming through transmission facilities rather than cable, and resolve the problem rural residents have of poor or non-existent radio and TV reception in some areas. We will energetically work on the project to set up a shared national cultural information and resource databank and bring digital film projection to the countryside, focusing on the village level.

Eighth, we will deepen reform of the rural financial system. The central government will allocate 1.956 billion yuan for inflation-proof interest subsidies to rural credit cooperatives in selected areas to deepen reform of rural credit cooperatives. One billion yuan will be allocated to subsidize agricultural insurance premiums. A number of major agricultural provinces that already have a relatively good foundation of agricultural insurance will be selected for trials of policy-based agricultural insurance. In addition, we will step up efforts to rearrange agricultural support funds, place greater emphasis on giving full play to the role of government funding in encouraging rural residents and society to put more money into rural development, and accelerate the development of a mechanism for ensuring st eady growth in funding from various sources for the building of a new socialist countryside.

3. We will promote innovations in mechanisms and policies to make education more available and affordable. Education greatly influences the direction a person's life takes, has a bearing on innumerous households, benefits future generations and is closely related to the country's future. Central government allocations for education in 2007 will total 85.854 billion yuan, an increase of 25.249 billion yuan or 41.7 percent over the amount of 2006.

First, we will extend reform of the system to guarantee funding for rural compulsory education nationwide. On the basis of consolidation of reform achievements in the western region, the reform will be extended to the central and eastern regions in 2007, enabling the 150 million rural primary and middle school students receiving compulsory education across the country to be exempt from tuition and miscellaneous fees and raising the level of guaranteed public funding for operating expenses of rural primary and middle schools providing compulsory education. In addition, students from poor families will receive free textbooks and boarding students will receive living allowances. A total of 27.98 billion yuan has been earmarked in the central budget for this purpose. We will continue to support pilot programs to attract exemplary teachers to work in rural primary and middle schools providing compulsory education and to build new schools with improved sanitation facilities in the new countryside. We will work out a plan to implement a system of guaranteed funding for compulsory education in urban areas.