A Change in Rural Economy

AGRICULTURE in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has become a profitable industry. Sun Shiming, 47. lives in Shika, Guigang City. He owns 6 mu (1 mu=1/15 hectare) of farmland and until recently made a living off it by planting rice. When he discovered he I could earn several hundred yuan more per mu from planting sugarcane, he immediately switched. Sun Shiming's     

Interest Rate Liberalization： A Major Step in China＇s Financial Reform

THE People＇s Bank of China （PBC） scrapped controls over interest rates on loans offered by financial institutions on July 19. The floor on lending rates, which was 7o percent of benchmark lending rates, has been removed. Fi- nancial institutions will now indepen- dently determine the interest rates on a client-specific basis, depending on market forces.