A national anti-poverty project called Whole Village Promotion has won praise from authorities and local people for its role in the development of northwestern provinces including Gansu, Shaanxi and Qinghai.

Wang Zhengyi, a farmer living on the Loess Plateau in Lianxing Village, one of the poorest villages under the administration of Dingxi, a city in Gansu, said he could not believe such great changes in his life two years after the project came to his village.

"Living in a remote area, we used to lead a very poor life and some of us could not get enough food and clothing," the farmer said.

"Now, we have roads linking us to the outside world, we use methane for cooking and heating in our newly-built houses, and we can develop new agricultural production methods," Wang said.

According to Wan Xuewen, head of the village committee, the project was conducted in 2004 with about 700,000 yuan (US$87,500) in government anti-poverty funds and a 500,000-yuan (US$62,500) loan.

The village spent the money on the construction of a road, a school, a clinic, a library, methane development and introduction of new kinds of farming equipment.

The improved infrastructure and the development of industries have helped increase local farmers' incomes.

In 2005, the average annual income of local farmers in villages that have benefited from the project reached over 3,000 yuan (US$370) per person, while the figure in 2001 was 1,088 yuan (US$134), said Liu Weimin, deputy mayor of Dingxi.

According to official statistics, more than 45,000 poor villages like Lianxing across the country have benefited from the project.

In 2001, the central government started to implement the project across the country to provide enough food and clothing for 26.1 million poverty-stricken people.

These people were living in 148,000 poor villages, 21 per cent of China's total villages, according to the anti-poverty office of the State Council.

Wang Shousen, vice-governor in charge of the anti-poverty drive in Shaanxi Province, said that the project helps villages map out their development plan and enables them to further develop with improved infrastructure and industry, he said.

The local government will continue its efforts to promote the project, which has provided enough food and clothing for 1.93 million poor farmers in the province since 2001, Wang said.

However, at the end of 2005, Shaanxi still had 5.24 million people suffering from poverty.

In Qinghai Province, the project was carried out in 179 poor villages and helped 115,000 local people out of poverty, said the provincial anti-poverty authority.

(China Daily May 29, 2006)