BEIJING, June 29 (Xinhuanet) -- 800 million farmers are expected to be exempted from agriculture tax in 2005, said Finance Minister Jin Renqing Tuesday in his report to an on-going meeting of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on thefirst five months' national fiscal revenue and expenditure situation.

    "To date, China has lately exempted 19 provinces, including Shanxi Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in north China, from agriculture tax, plus last year's eight provinces, the country's 27 provinces will no longer pay agriculture tax this year," Jin said when reporting to the 16th session of the 10th NPC Standing Committee, China's top legislature, which opened Sunday.

    In China's remaining four provinces that are still being charged of the agriculture tax, the tax will be revoked in 217 counties and cities, Jin said.

    As early as this year's annual session of China's top legislature opened in early March, Premier Wen Jiabao said the central government would earmark 39.6 billion yuan (4.8 billion USdollars) to support local governments in their rural taxation reform, and allocate 10 billion yuan (1.2 billion US dollars) from the state's risk fund for grain production to subsidize farmers.

    This year, as most of the provinces and autonomous regions stopped collecting agriculture tax, the tax revenue will reduce to1.5 billion yuan (180.7 million US dollars) or so, down 93 percentfrom the year-earlier level. Enditem