Poverty Alleviation and Development in Shanxi Province

　　【Overview】 In 2010, under the guidance of scientific outlook on development, Shanxi Province thoroughly implemented the spirit of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 17th CPC Central Committee and the Provincial Leaders’ Meeting. Taking the good opportunity for implementation of pro-poor policies for rural low-income population and supporting leapfrog economic and social development in Shanxi, to achieve of the overall objective of helping the poor obtain more income and enhance self-development capacity, the government further improved pro-policies, innovated the mechanisms and strengthened relevant measures to accelerate the development of poverty –stricken areas and successfully complete the tasks for 2010. According to the sample survey of poor households in Shanxi, the per capita net income of 57 poor counties reached 3125.4 Yuan, 412.4 Yuan more than that in 2009, up 15.2%; per capita net income of the 35 key counties for national poverty alleviation and development reached 2594 Yuan, 356 Yuan more than that in 2009, up 16%; and both the growth rates were the highest since the implementation of the "11th Five-Year Plan".

　　【Investment of anti-poverty funds】  In 2010, the central and provincial government issued financial anti-poverty funds of 1.026 billion Yuan for Shanxi, of which 604 million Yuan was from the central government and 422 million Yuan came from the provincial government. The provincial investment accounted for 70% of the central government investment.

　　【Contiguous development and poverty reduction】In 2010, Shanxi Province comprehensively launched the industrial development-based contiguous development and poverty reduction, which was listed among the "seven agriculture-benefiting projects" and got strong support from the provincial government. In specific work, through "planning for contiguous areas, implementing in counties, highlighting the industry, concentrating investment and entire advancement", Shanxi organized and completed the development of planning for contiguous poverty alleviation and development in six contiguous areas (northern area of Shanxi, Taihang Mountain area, Taiyue Mountain area, northern area along the Yellow River, central area along the Yellow River and southern area along the Yellow River) and 57 poor counties, and arranged 15 contiguous poverty alleviation and development projects in 15 counties in 2010. Total investment for these 15 projects was 703 million Yuan, of which 290 million Yuan was from the provincial government. The projects covered 682 administrative villages and nearly 240,000 people, including 516 poor villages and 170,000 poor people. In order to ensure the effectiveness of contiguous development, it practiced the project performance deposit system, signed the responsibility document and issued the provincial financial anti-poverty funds in twice. In 2010, it issued 210 million Yuan and all the 15 projects were implemented smoothly. In addition, four poor old revolutionary base counties, namely Yanggao, Pianguan, Lin County and Ji County were listed among the national pilot areas for "contiguous development". In 2010, it completed all the preparation work and started the implementation of some projects.

　　【Entire village advancement】 The province continued to take "three-guarantee" villages as the core of the poverty alleviation and development work in 2010, strived to increase capital investment and arranged financial anti-poverty funds of 430 million Yuan, 260,000 Yuan averagely for each village, much more than that in 2009. Plus county-level matching funds, investment from sectors and the funds raised by the masses, a total of 989 million Yuan was invested in the entire village advancement of the "three-guarantee" villages in 2010, averagely 598,000 Yuan for each village. According to the state’s arrangements, Shanxi Province completed the poverty alleviation of all "three-guarantee" villages as scheduled.

　　【Relocation】 In 2010, the province relocated 34096 people in total. Yushe and Jingyue County implemented pilot projects for relocation and accumulated rich experience for Shanxi to promote the work across the province.

　　【Industrial poverty alleviation】It reformed the measures on loan discount and issued discount interest funds in advance. The province provided interest discount funds of 11.84 million Yuan for the loans of 416 million Yuan of 22 national poverty alleviation leading enterprises, which benefited the leading enterprises as soon as possible; issued interest discount funds of 16 million Yuan for household loans of 460 million Yuan for 35 key counties to support the production and income growth of 13,000 poor rural households; established the mechanism for evaluation of poverty alleviation leading enterprises and completed the assessment of 32 national poverty alleviation leading enterprises, which effectively encouraged enterprises to help the poor develop production and obtain employments for income growth; completed the application work of provincial poverty alleviation leading enterprises, carried out prophase survey on supporting poverty alleviation cooperatives and made good preparation for fostering new forces to guide poor areas in industrial development.

　　【Labor transfer training】  Targeting at "two kinds of backward students" from 25 rural poor families of poverty-stricken counties, the province steadily conducted the labor transfer training. In 2010, it completed transfer training for 60471 people and achieved transfer of employment for 48900 people with transfer employment rate reaching 80.9%. Focusing on the leaders in poverty alleviation field, cadres for fixed-point poverty reduction, township cadres for entire village advancement, college graduate cadres in poor villages and other cadres and the masses, it organized anti-poverty theoretical training, skills training for industrial development, agricultural technology demonstration and promotion as well as the activity of providing technological service for the countryside. In 2010, it completed technology trainings for 70,000 person-times and played a very important role in enhancing the science and technology quality of the cadres and masses in poverty-stricken areas.

　　【Poverty alleviation by education】 In 2010, the province arranged special funds of 10 million Yuan, 5 million Yuan more than that in 2009; Subsidized 300 poor college students, 1715 poor vocational school students and 1500 poor high school students, made 3515 students benefit from poverty alleviation by education and made the number of subsidized students reach 6396. In 2010, the subsidies were respectively issued to the county finance and relevant schools, and then issued to the poor students. It was widely affirmed and praised by the poor and all circles of society.

　　【Foreign-funded poverty alleviation projects】 The province successfully completed the domestic and foreign document signing and legal approval procedures for introducing loans of $ 100 million from the Asian Development Bank, actively strived for ADB loans of $ 855,000 for two donation projects: "Groundwater management" and "women empowerment". It allocated the province, city and county-level governments to arrange matching funds of 54.288 million Yuan, and successfully launched the comprehensive agricultural development projects in River Basin of Shanxi with ADB loans with investment of 273 million Yuan, 143.8% more than the planned amount, involving five cities, 26 counties, 625 villages and 12778 rural households. The project was implemented with high standard and good quality and rapid progress was made, which was a good start of project construction.

　　【Social poverty alleviation】  First, strengthen fixed-point poverty alleviation. According to the guiding line of "adjusting the layout, innovating mechanisms and improving the policy", the government made new arrangements for the fixed-point poverty alleviation in Shanxi Province, added 29 large and middle-scale state-owned backbone enterprises under the administration of the provincial government, 15 central organs in Shanxi and the provincial military area and armed forces to participate in the fixed-point poverty reduction. As a result, the number of fixed-point poverty alleviation teams reached 170, the number of key counties receiving aid reached 39 and all the key counties for national poverty alleviation and development were covered by the fixed-point reduction. Based on the new situation of and requirements for poverty alleviation and development, the fixed-point poverty reduction teams transferred the work focus from infrastructure construction to industrial development and practiced the system for poverty reduction in contracted towns and areas and target quantitative management. In 2010, a total of 871 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds were issued and 846 new projects were implemented in poor villages. The provincial working teams issued anti-poverty funds of 263 million Yuan and launched 352 projects, achieving the goal of at least one project implementation for each working team that year. Secondly, encourage enterprises to help the poor. To conscientiously implement the spirit of the important speech delivered by the provincial party committee secretary Yuan Chunqing at the leader meeting of Shanxi Province, it conducted survey on large-scale enterprises in the province and drafted the opinion on the implementation of the poverty reduction projects for a thousand enterprises to help a thousand villages, laying a foundation for organizing a larger number of enterprises to help poverty-stricken villages. Thirdly, actively carry out social poverty alleviation. It strived for funds of 3.6 million Yuan from Singaporean Mercy Relief and launched four social poverty alleviation projects such as drinking water project for people and livestock in four counties including Yanggao, etc, and reached a preliminary agreement of cooperation in helping Wenxi and Qin County; strived for donations of medical equipment valued 16 million Yuan and milk powder valued 1 million Yuan from China Association of Poverty Alleviation and Development respectively for the implementation of cancer screening health project in poor areas and addressing milk powder problem of infants from 500 needy families; carried out Care Package Donation Activity together with China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation and donated case packages valued 2 million Yuan to more than 20,000 poor students in four counties like Lanxian, etc.; and organized experts to provide free medical services together with Shanxi Party Committee of Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic Party. The great pattern of poverty alleviation by all social forces was formed.

　　【Convergence of two systems】  First, supported by Shanxi Investigation Team of National Bureau of Statistics, the province carefully calculated the per capita income of Shanxi and submitted to the provincial government for approval, improved the provincial poverty line to 1550 Yuan and determined that 2.76 million rural low-income people live below the poverty line, laying a basis for implementing pro-poor policies for rural low-income population. Secondly, launched the pilot projects of poverty alleviation and development and effective convergence of "two systems" in 57 key counties together with the civil affairs departments, identified 2.4674 million people from 10,862 poor villages of 605 towns living below the poverty line of 1550 Yuan and made records of them, laying a solid foundation for targeting at the objects, implementing classified pro-poor policies and establishing a new mechanism of "minimum living guarantee and shaking off poverty through poverty alleviation and development".

　　【Poverty reduction publicity】  Giving full play to the role of making propaganda of poverty alleviation advocacy, to fulfill the main tasks for poverty alleviation and development in 2010, the province organized the poverty alleviation departments at all levels to broaden channels and increase efforts to hold special activities so as to create a good atmosphere for all people to participate in and support poverty alleviation and development in Shanxi. Economic Half-hour of CCTV, Xinhuanet, People’s Daily Online, Farmer's Daily and "Poverty Alleviation in China" reported the poverty alleviation work of Shanxi Province many times; Shanxi TV, Shanxi Daily and other major media of the province printed more than 110 pieces of news (articles) on the poverty alleviation work of the province; and the poverty alleviation system released nearly 1000 pieces of news on the province’s poverty alleviation, which aroused wide attention and provided powerful support for the poverty alleviation and development in Shanxi Province.

　　【Construction of cadre team】First, institutional construction. The Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office added project steering stations and arranged special personnel to take charge of the contiguous development and other key work; and Xinzhou, Linfen, Luliang and other cities with a heavy burden of poverty alleviation and development all strengthened the leadership management and department setting of poverty alleviation institutions; Secondly, business training. In 2010, LGOP organized various business trainings for more than 300 backbone persons in the field of poverty alleviation; the Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office founded and published the "Poverty Alleviation Digest" to introduce domestic and foreign views on poverty alleviation and development, national and provincial pro-poor policies, as well as regional innovative measures and typical practices for poverty reduction to leaders at all levels and poverty alleviation departments. Three seminars on poverty reduction were held in Jing’an District Party School of Shanghai and more than 250 people from poverty alleviation sector of Shanxi attended the training. Trainings on pro-poor policies and business operation were organized for newly appointed directors and deputy directors of city and count poverty alleviation offices and more than 20 cadres from poverty alleviation departments were organized to visit Yimeng revolutionary base of Shandong to learn poverty reduction experience, which broadened their mind and improved their quality. Thirdly, working-style construction. Based on the activity of carrying forward the spirit of Youyu, the provincial, municipal and county poverty alleviation departments successively organized cadres and staffs to visit Youyu County for survey. In the process of experiencing the spirit of perseverance, hard work and indomitable fighting of local cadres and masses, they got correct idea of performance, a solid working-style and stronger sense of responsibility for poverty reduction. Fourthly, investigation and research. Taking in-depth survey as an important platform for constructing working team and promoting the work, the Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office carried out, under its leadership, the activity of poverty reduction survey month participated by cadres and staffs to seek opinions for poverty alleviation and development. Especially after the Leaders’ Conference was held, the province took the initiative to meet the requirements of leapfrog development, put forward the objectives of and main measures for the current and future poverty alleviation and development in Shanxi through seeking public opinions, understood the current situation, enhanced people’s confidence and clarified the guiding line and specific task. The cadres and staffs of poverty alleviation sector in Shanxi all showed high enthusiasm for working together to promote leapfrog development of the cause of poverty alleviation.