Tianjin-Gansu Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation

　　【Overview】 In 1996, the central government assigned Tianjin to support Gansu Province in poverty alleviation. Since 1996, Tianjin has issued a total of 305 million Yuan of funds and goods for Gansu Province, of which 151 million Yuan is financial fund and 154 million Yuan is social donations (donated 53.64 million Yuan of funds and goods after 5.12 Earthquake), and implemented more than 200 anti-poverty projects. It has launched 20 entire village advancement projects, newly built more than 100,000 mu of terrace and more than 1000 rainwater-collecting cellars and newly built and repaired more than 129 Hope Primary Schools. 100 primary and secondary schools of Tianjin have been twinned with 100 schools in Dingxi City, Tianshui City and Longnan City in poverty reduction, provided a large number of computers, books and teaching instruments; newly built and rebuilt 200 clinics and donated 250,000 pieces of clothes. The two regions have organized more than 40 high-level exchange visits. 14 districts and counties in Tianjin have been twinned with 13 counties of Dingxi City, Tianshui City and Longnan City and they have organized 230 exchange visits between groups at all levels for field research and exchanges. More than 200 branch-level cadres of Gansu Province have been sent to Tianjin to serve as leaders for practice, trainings have been organized for more than 10,000 cadres and more than 50 cooperative agreements have been signed.

　　【Policy guarantee】Over the years, Tianjin and Gansu have signed a series of documents to further clarify the work priorities in their cooperation for poverty alleviation, including the "Meeting Minutes on Further Promoting the East-West Poverty Alleviation Cooperation and Strengthening the all-round economic cooperation" and "Five-year Plan for Tianjin-Gansu Poverty Alleviation Cooperation from 2003 to 2007", etc. Based on the actual situation of Tianjin and Gansu, they have explored a new ideology of "East-West Union in Promoting the Strong and Supporting the Weak" in their cooperation for poverty reduction, successfully launched a number of anti-poverty projects that directly benefited impoverished areas and achieved new progress in the work.

　　During the decade for the implementation of "Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development of China's Rural Areas (2001-2010)", according to the spirit of "Five-year Plan for Tianjin-Gansu Poverty Alleviation Cooperation from 2003 to 2007" and the "Meeting Minutes on Tianjin-Gansu Poverty Alleviation Cooperation and Pairing-off Assistance Work(2008-2013)", based on the actual situations of Tianjin, to support the development of Gansu Province, Tianjin and Gansu conducted the entire village advancement-based new rural construction, industrialization construction based on the development of leading enterprises and personnel intellectual support through labor transfer trainings; taking "East-West Union in Promoting the Strong and Supporting the Weak" as the main line, through twinning assistance and social participation, they have explored a new way of "government leadership, social participation, business cooperation and common development" for East-West poverty alleviation. The financial anti-poverty fund was increased to 20 million Yuan per year by 2008, mainly for economic and social development of Gansu Province.

　　【Implementation of entire village advancement program】 In 2009, starting with the development of the entire village advancement program, they strived to achieve virtuous cycle and sustained development of entire village advancement. Tianjin planning and design department made development plans for free for Bolin Village, Fengxiang Town, Anding District of Dingxi City and Wangjiaxia, Xihe County of Longnan City. During the plan implementation period, the funds for entire village advancement and industrial development exceeded half of the total anti-poverty funds. They helped the poor to develop Chinese herbal medicine, forest planting and featured industries such as the second generation of greenhouse to create conditions for income growth of farmers; helped them to breed small-tail Han sheep and other livestock and make funds service rolling development through “turnover sheep” and “turnover livestock”. As a result, some rural families had an annual income growth of 2000 Yuan.

　　【Business poverty alleviation】Business cooperation is conducted based on local featured industries and featured products’ strength to explore new way of business cooperation suited to Gansu’s characteristics and situation. In 2004, Tianjin Dahongwan Food Co., Ltd invested 23 million Yuan in Jingning of Gansu to set up Dahongwan (Jingning) Food Co., Ltd. After the establishment, the company has employed 358 people of Jingning and promoted the development of food-related industries such as flour, food packaging, dehydrated vegetable and transportation. Dahongwan (Jingning) Food Co., Ltd not only pays taxes per year, but also invested more than 25 million Yuan to promote local economic growth. The products have an increasing market share in Northwest areas. Tianjin Zhongxin Pharmaceutical Group Corporation Limited and Tasly Group as well as other leading pharmaceutical companies respectively signed Chinese herbal medicine production and processing agreements with Min County and Zhang County of Gansu Province. Relying on local resources, they established traditional Chinese medicine production and processing base, which not only supported the industrial development, but also increased employment and promoted income growth. In 2008, Tianjin Taotao Group invested 160 billion Yuan in Jiuquan for mineral product resource development and utilization. In 2009, it promoted the members of Tianjin City Fujian Chamber of Commerce to invest 500 million Yuan in Dunhuang of Gansu to construct Dunhuang Stone Product Industrial Park and explored a new way for coordinated development of industry and pairing-off poverty alleviation.

　　【Solar power generating system project】While helping the leapfrog development of developed regions in Gansu, based on the backward situation of impoverished areas of Gansu, in 2004 and 2005, Tianjin implemented solar power generating system projects in Huayuan Town, Diebu County of Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture for two consecutive years, ending the history of no access to electricity. The project was implemented by Tianjin Jinneng Battery Technology Co., Ltd and more than 700,000 Yuan of financial anti-poverty fund was invested in. On the rugged hill roads at an altitude of 3,200 meters, after overcoming the inconvenient traffic and cold and oxygen and many other difficulties and working hard for nearly half a month,  the engineering and technical personnel successfully installed the solar power generation system and made the villagers who had never seen electric light see the light finally.

　　【Poverty alleviation by trainings】 To train suitable talents, Tianjin invested funds for the implementation of “Jinlong Information Education Center” in 2001 and, taking it as a carrier, conducted specialized technical personnel training and technical trainings in education, management and technology. As of the end of 2009, it had organized trainings for more than 10,000 teachers, management persons and agricultural technicians. In order to promote the employment and income growth of the poor, they conducted labor transfer and employment instruction work in Gansu and the first six labor transfer and training bases of Gansu have successively been established in Tianjin. According to incomplete statistics, nearly 100,000 migrant workers of Gansu are working in Tianjin, mainly in textile, garment, construction, electronics, food and beverage industry, with an annual labor income of 560 million Yuan. Markor International Furniture (Tianjin) has more than 3000 employees from Gansu, accounting for 1/4 of the total staffs, and many of them have become the management personnel and backbone technicians and settled down in Tianjin.

　　【Poverty alleviation by education】 Over the years, through building twinning relationship with the counties of Gansu, the districts, counties, relevant units and schools of Tianjin carried out a series of “hand in hand” activities to support the education of the poor counties, donated about 10 million Yuan and a large number of audio-visual teaching equipment, sports equipment, library materials and school supplies and funded more than 5,000 students to complete their compulsory education, and a total of 346 teachers completed the two-year education support task in Gansu. As of the end of 2009, the city had sent 18 lecture groups to give lectures in Gansu and nearly a hundred experts participated in the activity with foot covering 8 cities and regions of Gansu Province and gave more than 100 lectures in total. In the briefing printed by the Ministry of Education titled "Tianjin Organized Lecture Tour Delegation to Gansu", former vice premier of the State Council Li Lanqing gave the instruction that "this practice is very good and should be promoted" and affirmed the lecture tour.

　　【Economic and technological exchanges and cooperation】 1．Take advantage of the carrier to build a platform. Tianjin and Gansu have conducted cooperation based on the annual Lanzhou Investment & Trade Fair, Tianjin Investment & Trade Fair and China International Private Equity Forum and signed a number of economic and technological cooperation agreements for more than 40 cooperative projects with investment of nearly 2 billion Yuan. For instance, Dunhuang City introduced tourism projects on Tianjin Investment & Trade Fair and more than 100 units and nearly 300 people participated in the fair, which promoted the development and utilization of the tourism resources of Gansu; Jiuquan City contacted the famous enterprises (units) in domestic financial field on China International Private Equity Forum for publicity of Jiuquan. In addition, taking advantage of the economic and trade platforms, Dingxi City and Tianshui City contacted relevant industries and departments in Tianjin to further expand the influence of Gansu in Tianjin.

　　2．Take advantage of technology to promote income. Tianjin Academy of Tianshui City, donated $ 2 million worth of vegetable seeds at the same time, signed a long-term technical cooperation agreement. Tianjin Academy of Agricultural Sciences donated fine vegetable seeds worth of 200,000 Yuan for Tianshui City and signed a long-term technical cooperation agreement. The corn seeds of Tianjin Academy of Agricultural Sciences covered 90% of the areas in Tianjin. Through cooperation, they added sources for income growth of the farmers in Tianshui and speeded up the popularization and extension of the science and technology achievements of Tianjin in Gansu Province. Taking advantage of the long history and rich experience of facility agriculture in Tianjin, they helped local residents to develop vegetable greenhouses, flower base, fruit and vegetable preservation and processing and provide technical support to improve the product level and increase the value added, which has not only promoted the development of local leading enterprises, but also formed leading featured products and brands and promoted the income growth of farmers. Meanwhile, Tianjin also provides assistance for Gansu and the prefectures and cities of the province to hold large-scale investment project promotion and information release conferences to strengthen the publicity.

　　3．Make use of the Internet to expand the coverage. With the anti-poverty funds of Tianjin, the “Jinlong Education Information Training Center” was set up in Tianshui City of Gansu Province. The project conducted remote personnel trainings on the Internet. Besides the education and teaching trainings for the surrounding teachers and primary and secondary school students, it also used the teaching resources to serve society and support local economic development. In 2009, six teacher and class teacher trainings were organized for 1073 people of the primary and secondary schools, of which 573 obtained the “Graduate Certificate for Senior High School New Curriculum Standards (Remote) Training of Tsinghua Weixin Education” issued by School of Continuing Education, Tsinghua University. Meanwhile, it organized trainings for 1,078 people in society. This intellectual support model greatly enhanced the traditional training capacity and covered a larger area and a wider range of fields. As of 2009, it had organized remote Internet trainings for 10,000 teaching and technical persons.

　　4．Promote cooperation by policy support. Annual anti-poverty funds are arranged to encourage and guide the enterprises of Tianjin to invest in and launch business in Gansu. For example, "Tianjin Home World" invested 80 million Yuan to build six chain supermarkets in Gansu Province, which played a positive role in promoting the trade and commodity retail industry.

　　【Social pairing-off poverty alleviation】 Over the years, promoted by Tianjin Municipal Government Cooperation and Communication Office, all circles of society actively participated in the pairing-off poverty alleviation to support the work in Gansu.

　　1．Hedong District of Tianjin: In the implementation of pairing-off poverty alleviation work, Hedong District Party Committee and Government mobilized social forces to donate anti-poverty funds and goods valued 1.5 million Yuan and 580,000 pieces of clothes. After Min County suffered from the hailstorm and earthquake, Hedong District provided timey assistance for Min County, used special trains to deliver the relief materials to the disaster-hit areas and provided rescue for 33,000 families and nearly 190,000 victims.

　　2．Heping District of Tianjin: It has successively donated funds to Tongwei County for four times, built 100 water cellars to solve the drinking problem of more than 500 people and more than 600 livestock; established Tonghe Hope Primary School to recruit 568 students, which alleviated the difficulties of local children in going to school; funded Tongwei No. 2 Middle School and the County Vocational School to improve the teaching conditions; purchased two 80-horsepower bulldozers; established efficient comprehensive agricultural demonstration zone, built 100 efficient energy-saving Generation II greenhouses and 100 plastic greenhouses, donated medical devices valued 500,000 Yuan; making use of the advantage of the trading zone, successively held many “local product sales fairs of Tongwei County” to help Tongwei County open up product sales market in Tianjin. Tianjin Binjiang Building provided sales counters for free for Tongwei County’s Feitian carpet and dispatched 18 medical service persons to Tianjin No. 1 Central Hospital and Tianhe hospital for six-month multi-disciplinary studies.

　　3．Tianjin New Technology Industrial Park: The Overseas Students Association donated, during their field visit in Anding District of Dingxi City, some sports facilities to Tianjin Hope Primary School, donated money and treatment instruments to poor households and built a long-term relationship with them for poverty alleviation.

　　4．Tianjin Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau: It has become its convention and mechanism to donate materials and clothing for Gansu. Especially after 5.12 Earthquake, it carried forward the continuous fighting style and provided 70 wagons of goods worth 53.64 million Yuan timely for the disaster-hit areas in Gansu Province

　　5．Tianjin Women's Federation: It recruited women from Gansu for domestic service to achieve poverty reduction by labor service and established labor transfer training bases. In 2006, the domestic services companies in Tianjin for the first time received 3,129 service people from Gansu, organized free trainings for those who came to Tianjin for the first time, and introduced and signed 6,271 employment contracts with contract compliance rate of 90%. As of 2009, the domestic service companies in Tianjin had received nearly 30,000 women from Gansu for training or employment.

　　6．Tianjin Committee of Chinese Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party: It has donated materials worth 800,000 Yuan or so; organized medical experts to provide free medical treatment for more than 300 patients; held the training course for presidents of the hospitals of key towns in Gansu Province, and organized a six-day training for 95 people from 43 cities (counties) of Gansu. Tianjin No. 1 Central Hospital, etc provided trainings free of charge for medical service staffs of Tongwei County People’s Hospital for a long time.

　　7．Tianjin Committee of China Association for Promoting Democracy: Since 2001, for four consecutive years, it has provided assistance for 221 poor students of four primary schools in Pingliang City, Dingxi City and Huining County of Gansu Province, and donated funds and school supplies worth 250,000 Yuan. In 2005, it organized trainings for 106 primary school presidents from 43 key counties for poverty alleviation and development. During the training, the participants conducted field research on the education and teaching situation of 7 key primary schools of Tianjin and all said that the training and field visits greatly widened their horizon and benefited them a lot.

　　8．Some well-known entrepreneurs and common citizens of Tianjin: Yan Xijun, the president of Tianjin Tasly Group donated funds of 500,000 to establish Pengyang Hope Primary School; Yu Jing, the Chairman and General Manager of Tianjin Mengde Investment and Development Co., Ltd donated 300,000 Yuan to support 21 students of Dunhuang and Zhang County to complete the junior middle school education in Tianjin; He Xueliang, Deputy Director of Dabizhuang Xinli Credit Cooperatives of Dongli District, Tianjin City donated 150,000 for 63 poor students of Jinping Primary School of Tongwei County for many years, invited some excellent students to Tianjin and took them to visit Tian’anmen in Beijing, Binhai New District of Tianjin, etc, which broadened the students' horizons and stimulated their patriotic enthusiasm and motivation. He Xueliang was also titled as "Outstanding Volunteer" by Tongwei County CPC Committee.

　　【East-West pairing-off poverty alleviation publicity】In 2009, Tianjin People's Broadcasting Station went to Gansu and made a 12-day interview, covering a long way of 4,500 kilometers with average altitude of 2,500 meters. With nearly 100 interview discs accumulated in the interview, it presented a program titled “for the children in the west”, which became one of the programs with the highest rate of audience of Tianjin People's Broadcasting Station, arousing strong reaction from all sectors of the city. The Municipal Party Committee Propaganda Department, Municipal Commission of Education and Municipal Youth League Committee, jointly with five media including Tianjin TV, conducted a reporting activity of “For the West of Motherland”. A good atmosphere for the whole society to support Gansu has been formed.

　　【Measures for East-West poverty alleviation cooperation】1．Attach importance to high-level exchange visits. Tianjin party and government leadership visited Gansu Province for more than 20 times to enhance mutual trust and promote exchanges for cooperation and common development. In April 2009, Lu Hao, Secretary of the CPC Gansu Provincial Committee, director of Standing Committee of Provincial People's Congress, and the governor Xu Shousheng headed Gansu party and government delegation to visit Tianjin for study. Central Politburo Member and Tianjin Party Secretary Zhang Gaoli, and Huang Xingguo, the Deputy Secretary of Tianjin Municipal Party Committee and the mayor, and other major leaders held talks with the delegation about development. The two parties signed an overall strategic framework agreement for the new stage, further strengthened the minutes of East-West poverty alleviation cooperation and the framework agreements for eight aspects, namely promoting education development by cooperation and exchanges, strengthening business cooperation, port cooperation, regional cooperation, cooperation in labor transfer and training, increasing cultural cooperation and exchange to promote cultural development, increasing health cooperation and exchanges to promote health development and increasing tourism cooperation and exchange to promote tourism development. It has further deepened the all-round exchanges and cooperation between Tianjin and Gansu in various fields.

　　2．Put emphasis on organizational improvement. The former two leading groups for pairing-off assistance and Western Development were further integrated as “Tianjin Municipal Leading Group for Pairing-off Assistance and Services to Participate in Western Development” and the number of member units was expanded to 47. The group leader is the deputy mayor of each government. Based on the actual situations, the city commissions, offices and bureaus as well as the district and county government clarified the working departments, strengthened the unified leadership and implemented the tasks. Major leaders of the leading group’s member units personally participated in, appointed certain agencies and staffs to take charge of the work and do a good job in poverty alleviation according to work plan. 14 counties of Tianjin were twinned with 13 districts in Gansu Province to support the poverty alleviation.

　　3．Attach importance to entire village advancement. To implement the pairing-off assistance task arranged by LGOP, Tianjin holds annual meetings on the pairing-off assistance or on the work of the leading group, aiming to notice the relevant central spirit on the pairing-off assistance, summarize pairing-off assistance work and make deployments on the tasks. The city's districts and counties, commissions, bureaus, relevant units and all circles of society all participated in the pairing-off assistance, exchanges and cooperation covering the whole city.

　　4．Attach importance to model guidance. On the annual "Tianjin Conference on Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation", the representatives of 3 or 4 units that made outstanding contributions to the work are invited to deliver speeches. On the annual municipal cooperation and exchange meeting, a number of advanced units and individuals are awarded. As of the end of 2009, a total of 40 units and 30 individuals in the city had been titled as Advanced Units and Advanced Individuals for Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation of Tianjin. In 2009, 14 units and 10 individuals were titled as advanced collectives and individuals by the LGOP.

 

　　（Tianjin Municipal Government Cooperation and Communication Office）