Gansu touts great strides fighting against poverty

Gansu province has managed to lift most of its poor people out of poverty as it endeavors to increase industrial development and create job opportunities for a final push in its poverty alleviation work, officials said.

There were 5.96 million poverty-stricken people in Gansu at the end of 2012, or 28.5 percent of its total population. By the end of last year, about 5.5 million of them had escaped poverty, the provincial government said.

Tang Renjian, Gansu's governor, credited the great effort the province has made to promote industrial development, which used to be the region's weak point.

"Previously, leading a very self-sufficient life, farmers in the province had limited commodities to sell. Agricultural enterprises' capabilities in contributing to poverty relief were also inadequate," he noted, adding that those factors made Gansu one of the regions in China that faced the greatest challenges in eradicating poverty.

Tang said many changes have occurred following efforts over the past three years to mobilize funds from various channels to stimulate industrial development based on the province's advantages.

While allocating 15.5 billion yuan ($2.34 billion) as poverty alleviation funds to help farmers enlarge their agricultural businesses, the province has also offered 200 billion yuan in loans to agricultural cooperatives and leading agricultural enterprises to help with their development, he said.

Tang said the efforts have paid off, with a series of agricultural industries, including cattle husbandry and vegetable and fruit planting, scaling up their operations.

Four counties in the province are each home to more than 300,000 cattle, and nine counties each boast more than 1 million sheep, Tang said.

In addition, he said, 752 leading agricultural enterprises have emerged and 2,713 agricultural cooperatives have been established across the province.

"Despite the grim situation caused by COVID-19 at home and abroad, Gansu saw 10 of its agricultural products exported overseas for the first time," while its farm products had become increasingly popular in domestic municipalities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing, he added.

Sun Wei, deputy Party chief of the province, said efforts have been made to help the poor find jobs as migrant workers outside Gansu.

In the past five years, 2.57 million poverty-stricken people in the province have participated in skills training programs. Since 2013, almost 6.5 million poverty-stricken laborers who left the province to find work earned over 110 billion yuan, he said.

Sun said in the past two years, industrial development and labor exports have helped more than 1.3 million people, or 76.8 percent of the impoverished population in Gansu, shake off poverty.

Tang said: "To boost industrial development and help farmers stand on their own feet and be independent are top priorities in our work … It's so comforting that, aside from robust industrial development, we have seen farmers become increasingly skilled and their market awareness grow."