China increases farm subsidies to fight inflation

The Central government of China will increase an additional 25.25 billion yuan (3.6 billion US dollars) as subsidies to farmers this year in an effort to boost agricultural production and cool down rising inflation, Premier Wen Jiabao announced here on Thursday.

The original budget was 562.5 billion yuan for this year, 130.7 billion yuan more than in 2007, Wen said at a national conference on agriculture and grain production.