Guizhou's efforts to improve lives paying off

Miao ethnic group deputy Shi Liping (center right) talks with Sui ethnic group deputy Song Shuixian (center left) at a meeting for Guizhou province at the ongoing session of the National People's Congress, which was open to reporters in Beijing on Thursday.Feng Yongbin / China Daily

Luo Yinghe, a National People's Congress deputy and Party secretary of Xinmin neighborhood in Huishui county, Guizhou province, used to live in village with no access to clean water, roads or the internet.

His hometown is located in one of the most remote mountainous regions in the province. "We had to walk miles and miles over mountains just to buy some daily groceries," Luo said.

In 2016, Luo and 4,685 villagers from 58 villages moved to their new apartment buildings in an economic development zone in Huishui.

On the opening day of the Guizhou delegation meeting during the second session of the 13th NPC in Beijing on Tuesday, Luo said their lives have been greatly improved thanks to the relocation projects.

Luo said about 2,156 relocated people have landed jobs at 263 enterprises in the zone and another 169 households have launched their own businesses.

In June, a new primary school and kindergarten for the relocated community in Huishui was opened, with an investment of 120 million yuan ($17.88 million) and capacity for 1,900 students.

Luo said that last year, the average per capita income reached 4,800 yuan. The number of private vehicles increased to 380 from 120 in 2017.

The province, ranked first in the number of people being lifted out of poverty, has completed relocation of 1.32 million people so far, said Sun Zhigang, Party secretary of the Guizhou provincial committee at the meeting open to reporters.

"This year, Guizhou aims to relocate another 560,000 residents in order to reach the target of 1.88 million people," said Sun. The priority is to help the new community residents enjoy a stable life and improve their incomes, he added.

The province's target in 2019 is to pull another 1.1 million people out of poverty, said Sun.

Meanwhile, the province's governor said that Guizhou has China's first big data pilot zone, and it has already adopted big data in lifting more people out of poverty.

Guizhou has attracted many internet giants including Huawei, Tencent, Alibaba and Apple to establish cloud computing and big data centers.

The province has employed big data technology to poverty alleviation and set up a platform to support accurate poverty reduction by mixing data and rural industry reforms, said Shen Yiqin, governor of Guizhou.

"We sell top-notch agricultural products from mountainous regions to the global market through the digital economy and big data technology," said Shen.

By promoting the cultivation of high-yield corn in villages in the province, the province has provided 6.67 million mu (445,133 hectares) of corn to the market.

Furthermore, the province has developed the country's first rural intellectual transportation scheduling system to help rural residents commute and deliver small packages.

Contact the writers at wangzhuoqiong@chinadaily.com.cn