New cooperative aims to enrich residents via profits

With the support of government reform, commercial towns in Guiyang - the capital of the southwestern province of Guizhou - are making a powerful contribution to the revitalization of rural areas and the alleviation of poverty.

The reform is promoting the integration of shared urban and rural development to build innovative demonstration zones.

Since 2016, Guiyang started to promote what is known as the "three transformations" reform.

It involves turning resources into capital, capital into shares, and transforming residents into becoming investors.

The three transformations reform is set to be a force for positive change, said Li Zaiyong, a member of the standing committee of the CPC Guizhou Provincial Committee, Guizhou's executive deputy governor, and Guiyang Party chief.

Li said the reform being implemented in the province would tackle the labor force, capital and resources together - in a process that would lead to the realization of common benefits.

To promote the transformation of the city and help the poor improve the quality of their lives, the Guiyang government is working with local companies to build a commercial town called Fanhuali.

In a response to the Guiyang government's three transformations reform, Guiyang Baiyun Urban Construction and Investment Company, a local government-funded company, set up the Fanhua Sharing Cooperative project last September.

Ren Hongjun, general manager of the company, explained the operating model for the project. Under it, low-income and impoverished villagers need only to fork out 100 yuan ($16) and they get one share that will give them a dividend.

The innovative model allows villagers to get the financial benefits of being active investors, instead passively receiving subsidies.

With their involvement in the project's capital structure, through the shares, the villagers feel sense of participation, which is one of the features of the three transformations, Ren added.

The project is an operating business. But the establishment of the Fanhua Sharing Cooperative will help villagers boost their earnings at low risk, with the aim of lifting low-income groups out of poverty.

The cooperative will give the share capital raised to a trust company, which will use the money to invest and get returns. The trust company will manage and distribute the dividend income to every villager paying 100 yuan a share.

Yuan Chengju, a 40-year-old woman in Bailong village in Yanshanhong county, Baiyun district, suffers a rare disease to her limbs that she had since a little girl and she is classified as level three disabled.

Yuan's husband died a few years ago and her daughter is studying in middle school. The mother and daughter previously survived with basic living allowances of 600-700 yuan per month.

But last September, Yuan was encouraged to buy a share for 100 yuan in the Fanhua Sharing project.

After five months, she received 3,000 yuan as a bonus.

"I never thought I could get that much money, which really helps me a lot," Yuan said.

Li Li, the director of an agricultural service center in the town of Yanshanhong in Guiyang's Baiyun district, said the project had helped many disabled people and their children, who could not improve their lives by themselves.

There are 1,682 low-income villagers in 803 families living in distress in Baiyun district.

Most of them can't earn money by themselves and survive in the city's rural area because of disease or accidents.

A total of 1,500 impoverished households in the district received a 3,000 yuan dividend before Spring Festival this year.

(China Daily 03/13/2018 page20)