China will accelerate the development of rural industry associations across the country to increase rural people's income and help boost rural economy, said Jiang Li, Vice-Minister of Civil Affairs, recently at a national rural industry association conference in Longkou, in east China's Shandong Province.

Jiang said rural industry associations are mostly organized by the people themselves, offering professional services to rural people and helping strengthen cooperation between families, which is important in promoting rural economic and social development.

Rural industry associations are becoming a new cooperation model among China's rural people, which, many Chinese economists believe, will "change the rural economy."

Rongcheng, Shandong has set up a rural fishing association whose commercial branches in Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK) have brought in annual profits more than US$10 million to local people.

China's various rural industry associations number more than 100,000, covering agriculture, forestry, farming, by product and fishing.

Most rural industry associations in China still face problems of small scale, weak power and incomplete regulation.

Among the 100,000 established rural industry associations nation-wide, only 10,000 have registered with local departments of civil affairs and obtained legal status. In Shandong province, 80 percent of the nearly 20,000 rural industry associations have failed to register.

Jiang said in the future, the Ministry of Civil Affairs will help the national rural industry associations improve their management regulations and register with the local civil affairs sector to acquire legal status.

Officials from the Shandong Civil Affairs Department said that the province will finish setting up files for all rural industry associations by the end of this year. It will try to establish a provincial rural industry association network covering all areas and industries by the end of next year.

(Xinhua News Agency September 10, 2004)