Xinhua Insight: Battle against poverty still hard in remote mountains

Towering mountains ring Longmu village, blocking people and services from the outside and keeping the residents locked in a battle with poverty.

The village has only 12 families, all squeezed in nine shabby sheds made of bamboo and wood.

Before electricity became available in 2009, villagers used kerosene lamps for generations.

Life in Longmu village is just a snapshot of more than five million impoverished people in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, where most residents of the country's key ethnic groups live.

Data from National Bureau of Statistics showed that the region's 12 resident ethnic minorities account for nearly a quarter of its 47.54 million population.

The national poverty reduction strategy has focuses on mountainous areas, but the fact that the poor are dispersed throughout Guangxi's remote mountains makes poverty alleviation difficult.

The Chinese government pledged to enact more support policies to lift the country's 70 million poor people above the poverty line by 2020, according to President Xi Jinping at the Global Poverty Reduction and Development Forum in Beijing last month.

Poverty relief remains a top priority for China and the central government will hold a Poverty Alleviation and Development Conference on Nov. 26, showing the government's will in the fight against poverty, especially helping ethnic minorities out of poverty.

LIFE OF THE POOR

Nonghua village is located in Du'an Yao Autonomous County in Hechi City, northwest Guangxi, where the Yao minority makes up 60 percent of its 700 population.

Girls change their fate by getting married with someone outside the village, but Nonghua seldom welcomes in a bride, men here are too poor to have wives.

Luo Anhua, 43, is still single. He had a girlfriend who is also of Yao nationality from a nearby village, but she left him because of the extreme poverty.

While his 40-year-old younger brother Luo Anshun has never experienced any romance.

The brothers live together with their 70-year-old mother in a wood- roof shed. They have to crowd in on three beds in front of a fire, as chilly winds seep in through their bamboo walls.

"We are too old, and look at this place we live, no one would marry us." Luo Anhua said with despair in his voice.

The situation in Nonghua is not an exception. Just more than 150 kilometers south lies Longmu village, Du'an Yao Autonomous County.

Two years ago, villager Peng Yujie's 19-year-old son left Longmu to work as a migrant worker. Peng hasn't heard from his son since.

"He may never come back," said Peng, "It's too poor here."

Like others, Peng lives in a two-floor wood shack, with pigs and chickens in the bottom and him living on top.

People eke out a living by growing corn. The annual per-capita income is less than 1,900 yuan (about 300 U.S. dollars), the poorest of the poor as the country's poverty line is 2,300 yuan in annual income.

They have to tramp over hills and dales for seeds and fertilizer, the same mountains that have become a hindrance for dozens of villages' development.

"Pig breeders have to hire people to carry pigs all the way out to the village for sale, and we can only use horses to transport commodities, both cost a lot," Chang Lusheng from the nearby Longfu County told Xinhua.

BATTLE AGAINST POVERTY

Building roads has become a priority in poverty alleviation. The local government has invested more than 700 million yuan on road construction and has built over 1,800 roads for poverty-stricken villages.

The road in Longmu village is nearly completed, with villagers only one kilometer away from a different life.

"It will be much easier for us to buy goods from the outside, we can build new houses by that time," Meng Yujie said.

However, building roads can be very costly and the local government has encouraged villagers to relocate into nearby towns and cities.

According to the region's Poverty Relief Office, Guangxi aims to relocate 700,000 impoverished people from 2014 to 2020.

Su Xingjin moved to an apartment in nearby Dahua Yao Autonomous County under the support of local government this year after having lived in a remote village for more than 40 years. The new policy has attracted many people to start a new life like Su.

China is seeking to diversify its poverty relief measures and reducing poverty through industrial development is showing results.

A pig farm co-founded by a private enterprise and local people in Yaocheng village, southwest Guangxi has enabled 16 villagers to have jobs with a monthly income of 2,500 yuan.

"The government should encourage enterprises to set up bases and lend support to poverty-stricken areas, attracting locals to take part in industrial development," said Wang Sangui, chief of the center for anti-poverty studies at Renmin University.

Meanwhile, the government completed agriculture training programs for more than 100,000 people, investing 150 million yuan on education this year, according to Huang Shouhuai, chief of policy research department of Guangxi Poverty Alleviation Office.

No ethnic minorities nor regions should be left behind in poverty alleviation, President Xi said during early this year.

Over the past three decades China has delivered 700 million rural residents from poverty. It was the first developing country to meet the global Millennium Development Goals target of reducing the population living in poverty by half ahead of the 2015 deadline. Endi