Jiangsu-Shaanxi Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation

　　【Overview】East-West pairing-off poverty reduction is a major strategic decision of the CPC Central Committee and State Council and is an important political task undertaken by Jiangsu Province. Since 1996, 10 provincial cities and 53 counties (cities, districts) of Jiangsu Province have been twinned with nine provincial cities and 56 counties (cities, districts) of Shaanxi Province for poverty alleviation.

　　Since 2009, under the leadership of the Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government, Jiangsu Province has implemented the “Guidance Opinion on 2009-2010 East-West Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation” and the “National East-West Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation Meeting Minutes”. Adhering to the scientific concept of development, it explored the pattern for all-round, in-depth cooperation in poverty alleviation in a wider range of fields, actively carried out East-West pairing-off poverty reduction under the new situation, continued to increase grants for the agriculture, water conservancy, education and medical industry in Shaanxi Province, further improved the production and living conditions of the masses in poverty-stricken areas of Shaanxi, promoted the further cooperation between Jiangsu and Shaanxi and achieved good results. According to statistics, in 2009, Jiangsu invested a total of 55.86 million Yuan of grants for Shaanxi, implemented 129 aid projects; built 40 schools and 19 public health centers (clinics); allocated social contributions of 2.8 million Yuan; helped the impoverished areas of Shaanxi to dispatch 21,700 labors with labor income of 329 million Yuan, and solved the drinking water problem of 21,000 people and 200,000 livestock in impoverished areas as well.

　　【Support for poverty alleviation project construction】In accordance with the “Agreement on Further Strengthening the Twinning Partnership and Economic Cooperation” signed between the provincial governments of Jiangsu and Shaanxi, Jiangsu did a great deal of practical work in promoting the pairing-off poverty reduction. Adhering to the principle of “complementary advantages, mutual benefits, long-term cooperation and common development”, following the 2007-2008 donation of 20 million Yuan of grants for a number of projects, in 2009, Jiangsu Provincial government issued 10 million Yuan of grants for the construction of 35 projects, including the Training Building of Mizhi County Vocational Education Center in Yulin City, the inpatient building of Pingqiao Central Hospital of Ansai County, Yan’an City, etc. In the project construction, it further standardized the poverty alleviation project management, constantly improved the project selection mechanism and gradually enhanced the aid project framework and work system to ensure these projects could really improve the production and living conditions of the poverty-stricken areas of Shaanxi Province.

　　【Infrastructure construction in impoverished areas】Based on the actual situation, aiming to solve the practical problems of the masses in production and living and to meet local needs, Jiangsu-Shaanxi pairing-off poverty alleviation focuses on the improvement of the production and living conditions of the impoverished areas of Shaanxi. In 2009, seven counties (districts) of Nanjing City, including Qixia, Pukou and Gaochun, constructed village-level roads, clinics, drinking water projects, silkworm processing, tea garden and walnut forest projects in the twinned regions. According to the actual situation of shortage of medical service personnel and medicines in some impoverished areas of Yulin City, Suzhou selected a number of excellent young and middle-aged backbone doctors to support the medical industry in Yulin for eight consecutive years. In 2009, it carefully selected five young and middle-aged specialists to form a young volunteer medical team to act as the principals and department directors in the hospitals of Dingbian County and Jingbian County of Yulin City. The volunteers overcame the difficult living and working conditions as well as many other difficulties to provide free medical services for the people of the old revolutionary base areas of Shaanxi. Based on the actual situation of “difficulties in roads”, “difficulties in drinking water” and “difficulties in seeing a doctor” of local residents, Jiangsu strived to improve the infrastructure in poverty-stricken areas. In 2009, it helped the poor areas build village-level highroads of 39.6 kilometers, improved basic farmland of nearly 210,000 mu and solved the drinking problems of more than 20,000 people and 200,000 livestock. The implementation of these projects have gradually solved the infrastructure problems of the impoverished areas and promoted the improvement of the production and living standards of local residents.

　　【Poverty alleviation by education】In 2009, Jiangsu continued to adopt various effective forms to support the development of science and technology, education, culture and health industry in impoverished areas of Shaanxi, aiming to improve the comprehensive quality of the masses and promote the development of social undertakings in poverty-stricken areas. It continued to support the education and health industry through improving the school conditions and teaching methods in poor areas, financing poor students to return to school, training backbone teaching staff and medical personnel, supporting the construction of Hope Schools and hospitals (clinics) and organizing the schools and hospitals of the two provinces to build twinning partnership for “hand-in-hand” cooperation to really benefit local masses. In 2009, Nanjing City helped Shangluo train six batches of 50 city management and district and county cadres, which broadened the vision and strengthened the governance capacity of local cadres. Lianyungang City provided aid for the poor to go to school for many times. In 2009, it again helped 40 excellent students who were going to drop out of school because of poverty complete the high school education and most of them were admitted to key universities and got the opportunity for continued learning.

　　【Poverty alleviation by training】 In 2009, while conducting poverty alleviation by supporting basic education, Jiangsu Province did a good job in agricultural technological personnel trainings for impoverished areas and took the training of comprehensive practical personnel as the core of the poverty alleviation work. They made use of all kinds of channels to carry out professional technician and business management trainings and trained a number of skilled practical personnel who are good at management and operation for impoverished areas to help local masses shake off poverty and become rich. In 2009, Suzhou successively held 8 skills training courses in Yulin for 539 township cadres, business cadres and the leaders for becoming rich from poor villages, which significantly improved the capacity of local cadres and masses in inviting merchants, new rural construction, county economy and working skills. In 209, Jiangsu helped Shaanxi build 40 schools and hold 37 training courses for 2.280 people.

　　【Activity of "helping the poor"】 Every year, Jiangsu Province mobilizes social forces in many forms to donate money and goods for Shaanxi and carry out the activity of "helping the poor", which is praised by local residents of poor areas in Shaanxi. In 2009, after completing the task of post-disaster reconstruction of Mianzhu on schedule, Jiangsu Province overcame the difficulties and continued to increase support for the post-disaster reconstruction of Shaanxi. Following the assistance for the reconstruction of the auxiliary buildings and fences damaged in the earthquake of Hanjiang Hope Primary School in Chenggu, in 2009, Yangzhou donated 1.7 million Yuan to Hanzhong City Red Cross for post-disaster reconstruction; and Lianyungang raised donations of 1.2 million Yuan and 75 tents for Baoji City.

　　【Cooperation in energy and competitive industries】 The “Guidance on 2009-2010 East-West Pairing-off Poverty Reduction” issued by LGOP pointed out that business cooperation is the direction of East-West pairing-off poverty reduction. Based on the actual situations of Jiangsu and Shaanxi, Jiangsu Provincial Development and Reform Commission and Shaanxi Provincial Development and Reform Commission came to cooperative intent on strengthening the cooperation between energy and competitive industries of the two provinces in 2009 and signed the “Framework Agreement on Further Strengthening the Strategic Cooperation between the Two Provinces in the field of Energy and Competitive Industries”. Based on the situation of complementary compensation of energy industry between Jiangsu and Shaanxi Province, the two sides intended to promote the further cooperation in regional coal and coal chemicals, coal electricity, photovoltaic and other new energy industries so as to promote the common development of the economy and social undertakings of the two provinces. On this basis, they further strengthened the cooperation in energy and competitive industries and encouraged the enterprises to cooperate and exchange with each other. With the support and coordination of Jiangsu Provincial Development and Reform Commission and Shaanxi Provincial Development and Reform Commission, Jiangsu Xuzhou Mining Group invested 3.3 billion Yuan to Linbei Coal Field of Baoji City, Shaanxi to newly build Guojiahe Field Project, and invested 6.4 billion Yuan in Baoji to construct the 1.5 million t/y carbinol project, of which the construction has begun. These two projects are the key projects of economic cooperation between Jiangsu and Shaanxi to promote the economic and social development of the two provinces, setting a good example for in-depth participation of the enterprises of Jiangsu in the development of Shaanxi.

　　【Economic and technical exchanges and trade cooperation】 In recent years, Jiangsu-Shaanxi pairing-off poverty alleviation has been carried out smoothly. They have not only maintained the high enthusiasm and investment for free support, but also promoted the economic and technological exchanges and trade cooperation through government guidance and market operation with the market and human resource advantage of Shaanxi and the funds and management advantage of Jiangsu Province. Since 1997, Jiangsu has organized delegations to participate in China East-West Region Cooperation, Investment and Trading Fair for 13 consecutive years. In 2009, the two provinces achieved certain results in investment negotiation and economic and trade cooperation on the China East-West Region Cooperation, Investment and Trading Fair and came to agreement for 275 cooperative projects worth 33.036 billion Yuan, including 151 internal cooperative projects worth 17.016 billion Yuan and 124 trading projects worth 16.020 billion Yuan. In 2009, with their respective advantages, the two provinces jointly launched more than 40 businesses, which promoted the development of the enterprises of both sides. After years’ development, a number of outstanding enterprise of Jiangsu such as Yueda, Vivian, Suning and Chunlan have settled down in Shaanxi, which promoted local employment, improved the income of the masses, made a contribution to the local economic development of Shaanxi and promoted the development of the enterprises themselves as well. Meanwhile, the enterprises of Shaanxi also came to invest in the enterprises in Jiangsu for cooperation. For example, Shaanxi Topsun Company acquired the state-owned shares of Jiangsu Gaitianli Company and they cooperated with each other based on the intangible assets of Gaitianli and the technical strength of Topsun.

　　【Measures for East-West pairing-off poverty reduction】  1. Leaders attach importance to promoting exchange visits. The Provincial Party Commission and Provincial Government attach high importance to Jiangsu-Shaanxi pairing-off poverty alleviation. Major leaders personally involved, department leaders personally participated in the implementation and the provincial, municipal and county (district)-level leading groups did real practice and solid work to constantly improve the mechanism for twinning assistance and regular contact system. In April 2009, Jiangsu Provincial leaders headed a delegation to visit Shaanxi and the two sides held extensive and in-depth talks on multi-layer exchanges and cooperation in new fields to promote the further cooperation between the two provinces in pairing-off poverty reduction. Meanwhile, the city and county (district) leaders also respectively headed delegations to visit the twinned cities (counties) in Shaanxi and jointly explored the ideology and measures for pairing-off and economic cooperation to promote the all-around implementation of the twinning poverty reduction. According to statistics, in 2009, the number of the exchange visits between Jiangsu and Shaanxi reached 900 person-times, which deepened the feeling between the two provinces through multi-layer friendly visits and communications, laying a foundation for further cooperation between the two sides in poverty reduction.

2. Highlight the priorities and strengthen the coordination. In 2009, according to the “Guidance on 2009-2010 East-West Pairing-off Poverty Reduction” issued by LGOP and the spirit of the “National East-West Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation Meeting Minutes”, the two provinces further clarified the priorities for Jiangsu-Shaanxi pairing-off poverty reduction, determine the work task and strengthen the organizational coordination. Based on the twinning work plan made in early that year, they further strengthened the leadership for Jiangsu-Shaanxi pairing-off poverty reduction. Based on the characteristics of poverty alleviation association under the new situation and government support, focusing on the development of social welfare, Jiangsu highlighted intelligent support, strengthened the function of “blood making” and help Shaanxi develop the planting, breeding and agricultural processing industry. The provincial government developed the program and annual work plan for Jiangsu-Shaanxi pairing-off poverty reduction, the relevant cities determined a number of key projects for poverty alleviation cooperation and economic cooperation through overall planning and implementation by stage to consolidate the basis, adopted related measures to solve specific problems of the poor in impoverished areas and achieved new progress in the pairing-off poverty reduction.

　　(Economic Cooperation Department of Jiangsu Provincial Development and Reform Commission)