High-speed rail helps lift Huanjiang villagers out of poverty

The Guiyang-Nanning high-speed railway passing through Huanjiang Maonan autonomous county of Hechi has greatly helped local poverty alleviation efforts during its construction.

The Guiyang-Nanning high-speed railway connecting Guiyang, capital city of Guizhou province, with Nanning, capital of Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, started construction in 2017. It spans a total length of about 481 kilometers, including 57 km in Huanjiang. It is the first high-speed railway in Guangxi with a speed of 350 km per hour.

With the help of the local government, many impoverished people in Huanjiang have gotten jobs at the railway tunnel construction site. To date, the construction unit of the Guiyang-Nanning high-speed railway has arranged and employed 857 local labor personnel and paid 4.77 million yuan ($672,823.22) in wages. It has not only solved the problem of labor difficulties for local impoverished residents, but has also improved their skills and enhanced their abilities.

For those employed who had no skills and related working experiences, the railway project department has also carried out training lessons. To date, a total of 2,274 local laborers and migrant workers have been trained.

Due to the lack of access to transportation, villagers in Huanjiang cannot easily go out to work or transport their crops they have planted out of the mountains. In order to facilitate construction, the project department of the Guiyang-Nanning high-speed railway has built more than 80 km of mountain roads in more than a year.

According to the urban development and transportation construction planning of Huanjiang, the construction access roads have been optimized to improve the interconnectivity of the villages. Since the start of the project, the railway construction unit has built about 30 newly-constructed roads in the county, linking more than 30 towns and villages.

In addition, the railway construction unit also buys daily necessities from local villagers. A total of 9.9 million yuan has been spent to purchase office, living, and logistics materials, increasing the income of villagers and driving local economic growth.