The government will spend 391.7 billion yuan (US$50.58 billion) on agriculture, rural areas and farmers this year.

China vows to develop modern agriculture and promote the building of a new countryside, Premier Wen Jiabao said in a government work report yesterday.

"We will effectively shift the focus of state infrastructure development and development of social programs to the countryside, " Wen told 2,890 law makers at the opening meeting of the fifth session of the 10th National People's Congress.

The allocations from the central budget this year represent an increase of 52 billion yuan over last year, and 94.2 billion yuan over 2005.

Agriculture, as the base of the country's economy, remains weak, and it is now more difficult than ever to steadily increase grain production and keep rural incomes growing, Wen said.

The Study Times, a newspaper affiliated to the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, predicted that China could face a 4.8-million-ton grain shortage in 2010, almost nine percent of the country's grain consumption.

Despite natural disasters, China last year saw a rich grain harvest, with total output amounting to 497.45 billion kilograms, 13.44 billion kilograms more than the year before.

The per capita net income for the 900 million rural residents increased 7.4 percent to 3,587 yuan last year. Safe drinking water was made available to another 28.97 million rural people, and the use of methane as fuel made available to an additional 4.5 million rural families.