Counties in Shanxi lifted out of poverty

Province makes great strides in creating job opportunities and improving social welfare

The last 17 counties, including Guangling, Tianzhen, Hunyuan, Ningwu and Jingle, were removed from the list of impoverished counties in Shanxi on Feb 27, according to the provincial government.

As of that date, each of the 58 impoverished counties in the North China province had their poverty statuses removed, marking a great stride in Shanxi's poverty reduction.

Shanxi had been a major focus of the nation's poverty relief campaign, due to its large area of impoverished regions.

According to the provincial government, Shanxi used to have 36 counties on the nation's list of impoverished counties, with residents' per capita annual income less than 2,300 yuan ($330).

The province's mountainous regions, including Lyuliang, Yanshan and Taihang mountains, featured the highest concentration of impoverished populations.

During the past several years, the government of Shanxi has carried out effective measures for targeted poverty reduction according to the conditions of different regions.

The measures include relocating impoverished people to better-developed areas, combining poverty reduction with environmental improvement and developing industries that can create more job opportunities and boost local economic growth, according to the provincial government.

The local economy of Guangling, a less-developed county in the mountainous northern Shanxi, used to depend heavily on farming, without enough industries to create jobs and boost residents' incomes.

However, the county is also famous for its many skilled craftspeople in various folk arts.

The local government proposed that residents establish cooperatives for various crafts and has helped them sell their products in both domestic and overseas markets.

"Most of the craftspeople are women. They can work at their homes while looking after their children and elderly family members," said Liu Jinping, a woman in Touquan township in Guangling.

Liu founded a cooperative for hand-knitted items in 2013, hiring about a dozen women at the beginning. The cooperative has grown into a medium-sized enterprise with 1,085 employees.

"Our staff members include 41 women with disabilities and 732 women living under the poverty line before they were employed," Liu said.

Li Xiaohong, one of the employees at the cooperative, is limb-impaired after an amputation caused by illness.

She works at her rented home in Guangling while taking care of her school-aged children.

"The cooperative pays me more than 2,000 yuan a month. I'm planning to buy an apartment in the county seat," Li said.

Guangling is especially renowned for its paper-cuts, which have a nationwide reputation.

In 2007, the county government helped to establish a paper-cutting industrial park and built the nation's first paper-cutting museum.

The park is now a site for production, exhibition and tourism.

To date, Guangling-made papercuts have been sold to more than 20 countries and regions, according to the county government.

In Pianguan in the northwest of Shanxi, the local government has used the solar energy industry as a major means to reduce poverty as the county gets plenty of sunlight.

"With an average annual precipitation of 420 millimeters, the ecological environment in Pianguan is far from satisfactory," said Wang Yuan, Party secretary of the county.

However, Wang said the rich sunlight is good for the development of the solar power industry.

The county government has helped villages develop their own solar farms as a means to increase income for farmers.

Photovoltaic panels have been installed on the barren hills and on the roofs of farmers' residences.

Hu Kuanzhen, a farmer in Tianfengping township, Pianguan county, said she is happy to see the "blue panels" on her house that can bring her revenue.

"My family was paid 500 yuan two years ago and 1,000 yuan last year for the 'blue panels' on the roof," Hu said, adding that the income will continue to rise as more power is generated and transmitted to the grid.

According to the Shanxi provincial government, all the poverty-relief-oriented solar power projects in Shanxi are expected to generate a total income of 2.63 billion yuan ($378.34 million) a year, which means a per capita revenue of 1,100 yuan for 2.32 million people involved.

In Lyuliang city, most of the impoverished population used to live in mountainous areas with unfavorable living conditions.

To tackle the problem, the city began a relocation program in 2017, moving residents to areas with better living conditions and more job and business opportunities.

In the city's Linxian county, for instance, more than 41,000 residents have been relocated.

All the 41,000 residents had moved to their new residences in larger towns by November last year, which were built with financing from the county government.

"I never expected I could move from a mountain village to my new home in the county seat, with electricity, water and gas readily available," said Wang Engui, a resident relocated from Duanxian village at the heart of the Lyuliang Mountains.