817 villages in Hechi lifted out of poverty over past decade

From 2012 to 2022, Hechi has fought a successful fight against poverty, reaching historic milestones in overcoming absolute poverty. It is continuing to consolidate and expand the achievements made in its poverty alleviation to effectively connect them with rural vitalization.

Hechi has been one of the main battlefields in Guangxi and China's poverty alleviation campaign. A decade ago, it was one of the cities with the largest number of impoverished people, as well as the widest range and the deepest degree of poverty in Guangxi. In the past decade, all 10 of its poverty-stricken counties and districts, involving 817 poverty-stricken villages and 765,200 registered impoverished people, were lifted out of poverty.

The city's fight against poverty has achieved remarkable results. All of its administrative villages have set up health clinics and village doctors, while no student is out of school due to family financial difficulties. Over the past decade, 75,200 dilapidated houses were renovated, while 301,000 impoverished people moved to new houses. 38,800 drinking water safety projects were implemented, effectively solving the drinking water problem for 1.57 million people.

The city has also vigorously developed its agricultural industry, building 2,184 modern characteristic agricultural demonstration zones. Its power grid upgrading rate, optical network access rate, and 4G network effective coverage rate in impoverished villages have reached 100 percent. In addition, 11.59 billion yuan ($1.63 billion) was invested to open 121 resettlement sites, build more than 40,000 sets of resettlement housing, and relocate 176,200 people.

The relocation and resettlement site in Huanjiang Maonan autonomous county. [Photo/Hechi Daily]

In its effective connection of the achievements made in its poverty alleviation and rural vitalization efforts, Hechi has maintained and improved the assistance policy in terms of financial subsidy funds and characteristic agricultural industry development.

To date, the city has identified 76,862 people from 19,947 households as monitoring objects to avoid poverty return. There are 577 sub-projects in the first batch of 11 pastoral complexes, with a total planned investment of 4.81 billion yuan. Among them, 517 projects have been started and 322 have been completed.

There are 71 key leading enterprises of agricultural industrialization above the municipal level, 279 newly registered farmers' cooperatives this year, and 7,015 farmers' cooperatives. Hechi has also built two autonomous-region-level, six city-level, and three county-level agricultural product processing cluster areas. In 2022, about 46.6 million yuan in transportation subsidies for trans-provincial migrant workers has been granted, benefiting 131,200 people.