THE THIRD PLENUM DECISION

China will improve the mechanism for coordinating urban and rural development, to allow farmers to share the fruits of modernization.

The country’s dual urban-rural economic structure —the different growth patterns in cities and rural areas that have led to a wide urban-rural wealth gap — is a major obstacle to the integration and development of the urban and rural areas.

China must establish a new type of relationship between industry and agriculture and urban and rural residents. Under the new relationship, the industrial sector will promote agriculture, urban areas will support rural development, agriculture and industry will benefit each other and urban and rural development will be better integrated.

The country must grant farmers an equal opportunity to participate in its modernization drive and share the benefits that accrue from it.

While implementing and improving strict policies for the protection of arable land, the country will grant farmers the right to possess, use, benefit from and transfer their contracted land, as well as the right to use their land as collateral or as a loan guarantee.

Farmers will also be allowed to use their land rights to become shareholders in industrialized agricultural operations.

They will also be granted more property rights, to promote the equitable exchange of factors of production between cities and rural areas, and the balanced distribution of public resources.