Poverty Alleviation and Development in Liaoning Province

　　【Overview】  Located in the south part of Northeastern area of China, Liaoning covers a total land area of 145,900 square kilometers and an arable land area of 4,085,000 ha and has a population of 42.46 million, including 21.26 million agricultural people. In 2009, its GDP was 1.5065 trillion Yuan, of which 141.49 billion Yuan was animal husbandry and fishery value added, and the rural per capita net income was 6,000 Yuan.

　　Liaoning has 15 key counties for provincial poverty alleviation and development and has 1697 poverty-stricken villages and 2.647 million poor people. In 2009, the provincial government continued to take poverty alleviation and development as the key people’s livelihood project of the whole province, increased efforts and investment and implemented entire village advancement, poverty relief training, poverty alleviation by industrialization, relocation-based poverty reduction and fixed-point poverty alleviation. As a result, the number of low-income poor was reduced to 1.617 million, with a decrease of 500,000. It has achieved the poverty alleviation objective of that year.

　　【Review of poverty alleviation】  The poverty alleviation and development work in Liaoning Province has experienced three historic stages: Organized and planned poverty alleviation and development (1984-1993), implementation of the "Seven-year Priority Poverty Alleviation Program" (1994-2000) and the implementation of the "Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development of China's Rural Areas (2001-2010)". Especially since the implementation of national poverty alleviation outline, taking poverty alleviation and development as a key people's livelihood project in the whole province, the provincial government continued to strengthen measures and increase efforts for the work.  By the end of 2008, it had basically solved the problem of food and clothing of rural people. Since 2009, the province's poverty alleviation and development entered into a new stage of supporting the development of the poor and consolidating the results of food and clothing.

　　【Investment of anti-poverty funds】  In 2009, the financial departments at all levels in the province arranged anti-poverty funds of 328 million Yuan, 9.2 million Yuan more than that in 2008, up 2.9%, of which 274 million Yuan was from the provincial government, 11.6 million more than that in 2008, up 4.4%. In the use of anti-poverty funds, it gives priority first to the poverty-stricken areas in the northwestern areas of Liaoning, and then to the facility agriculture with good benefits and strong ability to resist disasters.

　　【Entire Village Advancement】  In 2009, the province implemented entire village advancement projects in 420 villages, including 225 villages in 15 key counties (cities) and 195 villages in other counties (cities, districts). The provincial government provided anti-poverty funds of 213 million Yuan for entire village advancement program and provided annual subsidy of 700,000 Yuan for each poor village. The financial subsidies provided by the provincial government for each poor village in key counties were 600,000 Yuan and that for each poor village in non-key counties were 400,000 Yuan, and the remaining was provided by the city or county-level financial departments. A total of 1506 anti-poverty projects were launched, covering 94,236 rural households and 315,000 people.

　　【Poverty alleviation by relocation】  In 2009, the province implemented relocation-based poverty alleviation projects for 3000 households and 10065 poor people. The provincial financial anti-poverty funds reached 30 million Yuan, and the average subsidy per household rose from 12,000 Yuan to 15,000 Yuan, including provincial subsidy of 10,000 Yuan and city/county-level subsidy of 5,000 Yuan.

　　【Poverty alleviation training】  In 2009, the province organized trainings for 20,000 poor labors and practiced real-name system and employment record management. The employment transfer rate reached 90%. The provincial financial department arranged anti-poverty funds of 10 million Yuan for the poor labor transfer trainings, included the poor labor transfer training project into the entire village advancement program and organized trainings based on actual needs. There were a total of 21 poor labor training bases and 50 city and county-level training bases in the province.

　　【Poverty alleviation by industrialization】 In 2009, the provincial financial department allocated 17.6 million Yuan of loan discount fund for poverty alleviation leading enterprises and continued to provide loan discount support for key poverty alleviation leading enterprises. There were a total of 178 provincial poverty alleviation leading enterprises in the province, which could drive the development of industrial projects of 270,000 poor rural households and 1 million poor people.

　　【Fixed-point poverty alleviation】 In 2009, the provincial poverty alleviation units put in a total of 460 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds to support 258 projects and formulated the “Program for Performance Evaluation of Fixed-point Poverty Alleviation in Liaoning Province” to further improve the assessment methods of fixed-point poverty alleviation. 121 units were titled as provincial advanced units in fixed-point poverty alleviation and 143 sending cadres and poverty alleviation liaison officers were titled as advanced individuals in fixed-point poverty alleviation. Liaoning Poverty Alleviation Office was titled as the "Advanced Unit for National Unity and Progress" by the State Council.

　　【Poverty alleviation measures】  1．Adhere to "one target and five focuses".  "One target": The pro-poor measures must target at the filing of information of the poor and the anti-poverty funds must cover more than 80% of the poor and directly benefit poor population. More than 70% of the provincial financial anti-poverty funds were used in the northwestern areas of Liaoning, where are concentrated with poor people.

　　"Five focuses" include: First, entire village advancement: Identify a batch of key poverty-stricken villages in the province to implement entire village advancement projects. The provincial financial department provided anti-poverty funds for entire village advancement program to support the development of the industrial that can increase farmers’ income, especially disaster prevention and facility agricultural projects. Second, poverty alleviation by relocation, mainly for the “five-difficulty households”: The provincial financial department arranged special funds as subsidies for house building of immigrant households. The arrangements for relocation projects are combined with that for entire village advancement to ensure the immigrants can move away smoothly, maintain stability and get rich. Third, poor labor transfer training. Based on the central, provincial, city and county poverty alleviation training bases, the government organized order trainings and practiced real-name system and employment archives administration. Fourth, poverty alleviation by industrialization: The provincial financial department arranged special funds to provide loan discount support for leading enterprises of industrial poverty alleviation to reduce businesses’ burden, mobilize their enthusiasm and strengthen their power to drive poor households to get rich. Meanwhile, it conducted strict assessment and supervision on the leading enterprises for poverty alleviation by industrialization and timely adjusted the name list of the leading enterprises. Fifth, fixed-point poverty alleviation: Organized 210 provincial organs, enterprises and institutions to support 215 poor towns. The supporting enterprises dispatched poverty alleviation liaison officers and sending cadres to visit grassroots poor villages to explore approaches for poverty alleviation. The provincial government made assessment on the poverty relief work and practiced the one-vote negation system.

　　2．Explore innovative approaches to poverty reduction. In 2009, the province added 8 counties and 30 poverty-stricken villages as pilot areas for mutual funds. As a result, there were a total of 50 pilot villages for mutual funds in the county and the state invested a total of 8 million for it. Meanwhile, the government conducted provincial pilot mutual fund projects in 37 poor villages of 10 counties (cities) including Jianchang, Kuandian, etc, and invested anti-poverty funds of 10.15 million Yuan. 9 key counties successfully introduced the microfinance poverty alleviation management mode of China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation.