Hechi, Shenzhen yield results in paired assistance for poverty alleviation

Shenzhen in Guangdong province has been providing paired assistance to Hechi in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region - one of the nation's key battlegrounds in the poverty alleviation fight - since September 2016.

During the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20), Hechi had the most impoverished population with the highest poverty level among all cities in Guangxi.

Since 2016, Shenzhen has guided 57 companies to invest in Hechi and a total of 9.58 billion yuan ($1.44 billion) has been invested so far, benefiting 86,577 impoverished people.

The two cities have given full play to the excellent ecological resources of Bama Yao autonomous county to lay out the Shenzhen-Bama Big Health Cooperation Special Pilot Zone. The zone has become a major poverty alleviation project for cooperation between eastern and western China.

A total of 43 Shenzhen companies have settled down in the zone, signing 34 cooperation projects with Hechi with an overall investment of 33.9 billion yuan.

Since 2016, 45 Shenzhen schools have paired with 45 Hechi schools, and 38 Shenzhen hospitals have paired with 52 Hechi hospitals.

Shenzhen has held 80 recruitment fairs in Hechi, offering 350,000 job opportunities for local people. The two cities have teamed up to deliver 807 labor training programs for 31,502 people. A total of 30,085 people have gained job opportunities outside Hechi thanks to Shenzhen's help.

Both Guangdong province and Shenzhen have allocated 1.4 billion yuan to launch 429 poverty alleviation projects in all 11 counties or districts in Hechi.