County's wealth entwined with flourishing orchids

Training upgrade

Last year a cooperative model between Guangdong Songshan Polytechnic, the government and industry associations was established to train students for at least one semester.

"E-commerce is evolving rapidly," said Lan, the deputy dean.

"We invite experts in this field in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to train the students in the form of workshops. The students learn the latest, real-world knowledge.

"The goal of the department is to solve a bottleneck issue in the local development, which is a shortage of talent."

The college's Rural E-commerce Industry Department has trained about 300 students. More than 40 work for local enterprises and 10 chose to work in Wengyuan, mostly in the orchid industry, after graduation. The local government is funding a new building in the department complex, which will accommodate more students and teachers.

Lan also works at a Shenzhen-based company engaged in the integration of industry and education. He is involved in negotiations to build a livestreaming base of Douyin, a major short-video platform, and a warehouse and logistics base of JD Logistics, an arm of Chinese e-commerce giant JD, at the complex.

Although the county government provides subsidies for e-commerce packaging and logistics, Ma from New Brothers Agricultural Development Co hopes delivery costs can be lowered.

To boost the high-quality growth of e-commerce in rural areas, nine central government departments rolled out a guideline earlier this year.