Premier Li Keqiang said the “new economy” in agriculture should be generated during the CPPCC panel discussion on March 4 in Beijing.

Developing agriculture does not mean looting farmers, but to increase their incomes. In China, it can be achieved by promoting moderate scale management of multi-forms, increasing productivity and accelerating the development of modern agriculture, the Premier said.

“In this way, the ‘new economy’ of agriculture can be generated.”

He made the remarks when he visited members of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and joined discussions with them.

Premier Li stressed that there will be a relatively substantial raise of deficit rate. The newly-added deficit will mainly be used in enterprise tax reductions. At the same time, part of the deficit will be used to guarantee people’s welfare. There will be more proactive fiscal policies while monetary policies should be appropriately steady.

The central government’s debt ratio is only 17 percent. Although local governments’ debt ratio is relatively high, most of the government assets are operational, he noted. “There is huge room remaining to activate government assets, providing policy space for us to improve fiscal measures.”

The members at the discussion, who are from the economic and agricultural sectors, came to attend the fourth session of the 12th National Committee of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beijing.