China's premier has laid out plans for increased public spending in a bid to close ths gap between the country's urban rich and mainly rural poor.

In a speech to the National People's Congress, Wen Jiabao said China's leaders needed to pay more attention to the millions of Chinese how had yet to benefit from the country's economic boom.

It is a problem that is particularly acute in China's countryside, where many rural residents are seeing their land eaten up by development, often forcibly taken from them.

Al Jazeera's Tony Birtley reports from Jiangsu province.