MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Millions of migrant rural workers in China are jobless

An estimated 20 million Chinese migrant workers that left impoverished rural areas for jobs in the booming cities workshops are now unemployed as a direct consequence of the world crisis, admitted a high official from the ruling Communist party in Beijing.

Chen Xiwen, head of a government agency to promote farm jobs revealed that 15.3% of migrant workers have returned to rural areas from cities and are now jobless. "It is fair to say that the Chinese government considers employment for migrant workers a most serious problem" said Chen, adding that as the world crisis keeps advancing and deepening its impact on the Chinese economy "we are beginning to see the consequences for agriculture and rural development". Chen Xiwen anticipated an "extremely hard" year for the Chinese rural which is estimated in 750 million people Chinese authorities have made a major effort to achieve an 8% expansion this year which is considered the floor growth to contain unemployment. Meanwhile the Chinese Finance ministry reported that the budget deficit last year reached 16.2 billion US dollars, evidence of spending efforts to boost the economy. An increase in revenue of 19.5% was offset by a 25.4% rise in spending, compared with the previous year. The Ministry said the jump in spending was largely due to relief funds needed to cope with the Sichuan earthquake in May 2008. China also spent billions of dollars on a stimulus package in November. The government pledged almost 600 billion to invest in housing, infrastructure and post-earthquake reconstruction over the next two years in order to kick-start the country's slowing economy. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiaboa has said that his government may take further measures to boost economic activity. After experiencing years of double digit growth, China's economy grew by 9% in 2008, but only by 6.8% in the final quarter of the year.