It was known by the reporter on March 3 that Xie Xuren, Minister of the Ministry of Finance (MOF) pointed out while chairing the fourth ministerial joint conference on home appliances going to the countryside recently that China will further exert the role of policies for home appliances going to the countryside to proactively guide residential consumption this year.

Xie said in 2010, to further exert the role of policies for home appliances going to the countryside, we shall give priority to the aspects of the quality of home appliances going to the countryside, market supervision and administration, after-sale services, price management and prevention of subsidy cheating and organize local administrations to implement subsidy for newly-increased products.

He added that we shall practically conduct examinations for home appliances going to the countryside, urge policies and measures to be carried out, proactively support and guide residential consumption and strive to enhance the driving role of consumption in economic growth.

Based on the preliminary statistics of the MOF, in 2009, the sales of home appliances going to the countryside came up to 34.50 million units to RMB64.7b, with the accumulatively released subsidy of RMB7.54b, obviously driving consumption.