TV or not TV

• Source: The Global Times
• [22:10 May 05 2009]
• Comments

Shoppers look at refrigerators in Wuhan, Hubei Province, in March. The government launched a sales campaign in rural areas, but the plan has yet to live up to expectations. Photo: CFP

By Zhang Nan

The nation’s leaders revealed plans for increased spending on rural development at this year’s NPC session. Among them was the promise of continued support for a campaign launched last year to boost sales of electronic goods in the countryside.

Part of the government’s multi-trillion-yuan economic stimulus package, the “Sales Campaign for Rural Areas” is designed to provide new sources of revenue for manufacturers, while offering farming families 13-percent discounts on a selected range of mobile phones, TVs, washing machines and other household gadgets.

Despite its good intentions, however, the plan has yet to live up to its expectations. The reason, some have said, is that despite the rock-bottom prices, farmers are simply too short of cash.

“Farmers have shown little enthusiasm, so the campaign has done a lot worse than expected,” Yang Gongshe, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, said in an interview with Nanfengchuang magazine.

“The problem is that people in the countryside make their money through hard labor, so they’re very careful how they spend it.”