By Sim Chi Yin, China Correspondent

BEIJING: China's top leaders yesterday approved rural reforms and pledged to double the income of the country's farmers by 2020, as Beijing looks to its domestic markets to shield itself from the global financial turmoil.

The official Xinhua news agency last night reported that the four-day Third Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party's decision-making Central Committee passed a package of rural policies and also discussed the unfolding global crisis.

But glaringly missing from the report were widely-anticipated land reforms, including allowing farmers to transfer or mortgage rights for their tiny plots to other farmers or agriculture companies.

For more The Straits Times stories, click here.