A good economic structure not only has big and strong enterprises, but also booming individual businesses that can create a large number of job opportunities. To cancel administrative fees for individual businesses is undoubtedly an appropriate policy.

Guangzhou Daily

Urban/Rural Gap

According to official statistics, in 2007, the net income for rural Chinese residents actually increased 9.5 percent, the highest since 1985, but it was also the worst year of rural/urban income gap in three decades, with an actual annual difference of 9,646 yuan ($1,290).

The income gap between rural and urban residents keeps widening, but in most cases, rural residents are poor not because they have insufficient food, clothes or houses, but because they cannot afford huge expenses for health care and children's education. To some extent, if these expensive items are no longer problems, given the relatively low daily expenses in rural areas, the income gap between rural and urban areas will not seem as bad as it is now.

Therefore, at the present stage, while trying to increase farmers' income by cutting the cost of growing crops and improving the living and working conditions of migrant workers, the government must consider how to set up a well-developed social security system for rural residents. This may be the best and most practical way to narrow the fast widening gap between the country's rural and urban areas.

Xi'an Evening News

Pay Teachers Decent Wages

South China's Guangdong Province recently revealed that it would gradually raise rural teachers' income to the level of local civil servants and provide them with well-developed social security.

In accordance with China's Compulsory Education Law, which came into effect on September 1, 2006, teachers' average salaries should not be less than local government workers', but the regulation has not been put into thorough practice.

Nowadays, the average annual salary for an ordinary government worker in Guangzhou, capital city of Guangdong, is at least 100,000 yuan ($15,000), but that of a local high school principal only stands at 50,000 yuan ($7,500) to 70,000 yuan ($10,000), with teachers in rural areas being paid even less.

The widely recognized proportion of an education budget to a country's GDP is 4.9-5.1 percent in developed countries and 4.1 percent in less developed countries-but until 2007 it was only 3.01 percent in China.

Thus, to ensure that teachers' incomes are not less than government workers', there must be a reliable system. To be specific, the salary of teachers of compulsory education should be part of the fiscal budgets of governments at various levels, just like that for government workers, and should be deliberated and approved by lawmakers. Besides, there should also be an accountability system. In cases where teachers are not well paid, the departments and people in charge must accept accountability.

Wuhan Evening News