In the first quarter of 2010, the Ministry of Commerce in China reported large growth of appliance sales in rural areas of the country due to the government’s policy to offer subsidies to farmers for appliance purchases.

Farmers bought more than 16 million sets of subsidized household appliances from January through March of this year, an increase of close to 500 percent compared with last year. Sales of refrigerators reached 11.3 billion yuan and washing machines reached 4.2 billion yuan. The Ministry of Commerce launched the rural home appliance subsidy program in February 2009 to help spur economic growth. Farmers are given subsidies equal to 13 percent of the price of the designated appliance.