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China to launch the National Fitness Project for Peasants

2006-03-29 17:28 COC

    

At a press conference of the State Council Information Office held in Beijing on March 29, 2006, China's General Administration of Sport announced that the National Fitness Project for Peasants will be officially launched in the year, as one of the measures taken by the Chinese government for building a new socialist countryside and with the aim of improving rural citizens' health conditions, building a civilization with a high cultural and ideological level in rural areas and promoting further development of the rural sports undertaking. Following are opening remarks made by Feng Jianzhong, Vice-Minister of the General Administration of Sport, at the press conference.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The "11th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development" approved by the recent Fourth Session of the Tenth National People's Congress brings forward the idea of promoting and implementing the National Fitness Project for Peasants. As one of the measures taken by the Chinese government for building a new socialist countryside, the Project has a great significance to improving peasants' health conditions, building a civilization with a high cultural and ideological level in rural areas and promoting further development of the rural sports undertaking. For this, the General Administration of Sport of China has issued Views on Implementing the National Fitness Project for Peasants, which require that the Project be officially launched across China this year and that sports departments at different levels take it as an important task for the coming years.

The National Fitness Project for Peasants will benefit mainly those administrative villages, where small-sized, economical and practical public sports fields and facilities for fitness building activities are built to encourage the establishment of rural sports organizations and local sports stations/points which help form an all-for-fitness service system for rural areas. The basic criteria for such field construction are one standard concrete basketball field, equipped with a pair of standard basketball stands, and two outdoor table tennis tables. The construction fund comes partly from the central government allocation, mainly from local governments' investment and complementarily from the support of the society. The equipment will be purchased with the public welfare fund from the Sports Lottery sales. The sports fields and facilities will be built on the public ground of the villages, with local peasants offering their labour on a voluntary basis.

China is a large agricultural country. About 80 percent of our population are living in the countryside. Developing rural sports in an extensive way will therefore play an important role in helping improve peasants' physical quality and health conditions, enrich their spare-time cultural life, revolutionize their old customs and practices and guide them to a scientific, civilized and healthy way of living. Since the founding of New China in 1949 China's rural sports undertaking has attained vigorous growth, thanks to the close attention given by the governments at different levels. However, due to a poor financial foundation, the debts due, and the lack of sports resources, particularly the lack of sports grounds, rural sports development is greatly restricted in China's vast countryside. Statistics from The Fifth National Survey of Sports Fields show that there are over 850,000 fields in China, among which only 8.18 percent are scattered in towns and villages, which can hardly satisfy the demand of the great majority of peasants for fitness keeping and sports activities. With the constant improvement of the rural economy and the overall progress of the society peasants in China have gradually proceeded from being adequately fed and clad to being fairly well-off, and when their concepts of life and life styles have changed they are willing to take their spare time out for various health-building activities, and the more they do so the more enthusiastic they are about sports. As we all know, in our implementation of the National Fitness Programme and structuring of a fitness-for-all system with Chinese characteristics, the focal point is the countryside and the most difficult part is also the countryside. So when we implement the National Fitness Project for Peasants, we should seize the basic link of sports field construction and strengthen the governments' public service for the rural areas. All these will help give an effective impetus to the rural sports development, which will in turn make due contributions to the building of the new socialist countryside for the benefit of all peasants in China.

Of all the measures to be taken in building the new socialist countryside the National Fitness Project for Peasants is the one that needs the smallest investment but will produce an instant effect and benefit directly peasants of the vicinity. It is solid work done by the government for peasants and will be a long-term task for all the parties concerned. To perform this task well, we have to proceed from the actual situation, plan in a scientific way, work out measures to suit local conditions and do whatever within the limit of our resources. While making steady progress - step by step and by giving high priority to the most needy areas - we will also cooperate with other departments concerned in constantly coordinating our plans and measures for building the new socialist countryside, arouse the enthusiasm of all parties, respect peasants' wills and not increase their burden. Only in this way can we bring genuine happiness to the broad masses of the peasants.

This year, the National Fitness Project for Peasants will be officially launched in various provinces. The General Administration of Sport and the National Development and Reform Commission have arranged part of the fund for the Project and will select a few provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities typical of east, central and west China for trial construction. With the completion of some of the fields by the end of the year we will be able to sum up the experience of the selected areas and improve our implementing plans for further endeavour. In the meantime, those provinces will also map out their implementing plans and make their own trials in selected units. Generally speaking, the implementation of the National Fitness Project for Peasants will be the responsibilities of the local governments. Starting from the villages where conditions exist and people are enthusiastic about the project, the local governments will use the experience gained at one unit and promote work in the entire area. Within the 11th Five-Year period we will try to build public sports fields and facilities in one-sixth of the administrative villages and increase the number of peasants taking part in regular sports activities by a big margin.

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