Guangxi to lift 1 million people out of poverty

There are 5.38 million people living below the poverty line in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, one of the main poverty regions. In 2015, Guangxi decided to help 1 million people relocate and lift them out of poverty by 2020. Relocation work is currently taking place in Guangxi’s Pinggui, Tianyang, and Donglan areas.

Planned resettlement ensures relocation feasible

Donglan County of Hechi City and Tianyang County of Baise City, Guangxi, are situated in the Yunnan-Guizhou-Guangxi rocky desertification area, one of the 14 connected destitute areas in China. It has one of Guangxi’s largest populations below the poverty line. Some of the residents in this region face difficult living environments, as they live in mountainous areas with backward infrastructures and harsh natural conditions.

In Tianyang County, a 1.2-billion-yuan relocation project is underway, while several buildings have finished construction. Altogether the new buildings take up a total of 470 mu, and will become home to 300,000 residents. By the first half of 2016, it’s expected that 5,000 residents will be able to move in.

According to local officials, a seventy-square-meter three-bedroom resettlement apartment costs 120,000 yuan. Poor households that have registered with the local government will receive a 7000-yuan per head home purchase subsidy. They can also apply for a 10-year maximum loan of 800,000 yuan from the Agricultural Bank of China. So far more than 6,000 people have applied to relocate to the resettlement community.

In Simeng Township, Donglan County, many residents have already moved into the resettlement community. It’s home to 76 households, and there’s a 6000-yuan per head subsidy for purchasing the 70-square-meter homes in the community. In addition, each household can apply for a further grant of 17,000 yuan.

“We’ve moved down here from more than 25 kilometers away in the mountainous area. There’re six people in my family and we’ve spent about 170,000 yuan on the resettlement. I made most of the money working in Guangdong, and borrowed 70,000 yuan from relatives and the bank. The new home is very close to the township kindergarten, so it’s convenient for me to pick up my child,” said Huang Bier, a relocated resident.

Supporting industries to be strengthened　　

In 2014, there were 72,700 registered poor residents in Pinggui Area, Hezhou City. It accounted for 18.32 percent of the local population. Living environment in those remote villages in Pinggui area is harsh and farmers lived in scattered areas. Since 2015, Pinggui Area has accelerated the resettlement project and sped up infrastructure construction such as community health service. With support from the Calcium Carbonate Hundred Billion Yuan Industry Model Base and the Wang Gao Industrial Park, it’s expected that 45,000 poor residents will be resettled by 2020.　　

At the Pinggui New City resettlement site, three 18-storeyed buildings are under construction.

“We have to make sure the poor residents can indeed make a living after they move into the resettlement community from mountainous areas,” said Zhu Jianjun, executive director of the Pinggui Administrative Committee. Zhu said the resettled farmers can keep their rural hukou (registered permanent residence), and enjoy the same rights to education and medical services as urban residents. In the meantime, the committee will plan and construct educational facilities from kindergarten to high school, build hospitals, sports stadiums, careers training center and other facilities.

The Hezhou Calcium Carbonate Hundred Billion Yuan Industry Model Base is just several kilometers away from Pinggui New City. In recent years, Hezhou City has actively attracted investments to develop its calcium carbonate industry as it has abundant mineral resources. It’s expected that by 2020, the output value of the model base will be worth of 60 billion yuan.

“By 2016, labor demand will reach 60 to 70 thousand people as the base expands its operation, and resettled farmers will be employed as industrial workers after some training, and they will make a steady income,” said Zhu.