Poverty Alleviation and Development in Liaoning Province

　　【Overview】 In 2010, Liaoning Province conscientiously implemented the deployments of the provincial party committee and government. Taking poverty alleviation and development as a key livelihood project in the province, adhering to the guiding line of development-oriented poverty alleviation, in order to increase the income of poor people, steadily solve the food and clothing problem and improve the living standards of people, focusing on entire village advancement, labor transfer training, fixed-pointed poverty alleviation and relocation-based poverty reduction, giving play to the role of leading enterprises, the government increased efforts and investment in poverty reduction and achieved remarkable results. In 2010, it completed entire village advancement in 420 villages, organized transfer trainings for 24,000 poor labors and relocated 3,107 households in poverty reduction. There was a reduction of 532,200 in the number of low-income people and the number of registered low-income poor people dropped to 1.0573 million.

　　【Anti-poverty funds】 In 2010, 323.35 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds were issued by the governments at all levels of the province, of which 256.3 million Yuan was from the provincial government, 4.9% up over the previous year. As for the use of funds, the government gave priority to the poverty-stricken areas in northwest regions and facility agriculture with good efficiency and strong ability to resist disasters. The funds used in facility agricultural projects accounted for 48.4% of the total funds for entire village advancement.

　　【Entire village advancement】 In 2010, the province implemented entire village advancement projects in 420 villages, including 285 villages in 15 key counties (cities) and 135 villages in other counties. The provincial and central government provided anti-poverty funds of 225 million Yuan for entire village advancement program, accounting for 74.9% of the total, 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 1,435 anti-poverty projects were launched, covering 87,679 rural households and 306,900 people. In implementation of entire village advancement projects, the government gave priority to the northwest areas and key counties. The funds for 174 villages including Fuxin and Chaoyang accounted for 41% of the total, and that for 285 villages in 15 key counties accounted for 68%.

　　【Relocation-based poverty alleviation】 In 2010, Liaoning Province completed the relocation-based poverty reduction of 3107 households and 10288 people and issued 15,000 Yuan for each relocated households, including 10,000 Yuan from the provincial government and 5000 Yuan from city or county government. A total of 45 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds were issued for the project, of which 30 million Yuan was provincial anti-poverty funds. The program targeted at the poor mountain areas in the eastern and western regions, aiming to improve the living and production conditions of the poor living in remote mountain areas. The province practiced the real-name registration system for immigrant families and made records of the households’ heads, population, average annual net income, former address (town, village, team) and photos of old houses, new address  (town, village, team) and photos of new houses, reasons for relocation, ways of resettlement and support projects, etc.

　　【Labor transfer training】 In 2010, Liaoning Province organized trainings for 24,000 poor labors and transferred employments for 21,900 people. The employment transfer rate was 91%. 10 million Yuan of special funds were issued for poor labor transfer training and subsidies were provided for the poor labors receiving trainings. The training courses, employment-oriented, were set according to market demand and the wishes of participants. Independent account was opened and student rosters were prepared for the trainings, and real-name system and employment records management were practiced.

　　【Industrial poverty alleviation】 In 2010, the provincial financial department allocated 17.6 million Yuan of loan discount fund for poverty alleviation leading enterprises, which benefited 198 businesses. As of the end of 2010, there were a total of 562 poverty alleviation leading enterprises at all levels in Liaoning, of which 24 were national poverty alleviation leading enterprises, 178 were provincial poverty alleviation leading enterprises (including national poverty alleviation leading enterprises), and 411 were city and county-level poverty alleviation leading enterprises (including provincial poverty alleviation leading enterprises). 28 leading enterprises recorded sales revenue of 100 million Yuan. Through the pattern of “company + base + rural households”, the leading enterprises signed farming and breeding agreements with farmers to support the poor to develop projects that can increase their income and help them become rich. Some leading enterprises provided the poor with seeds, chemical fertilizer, pesticide, agricultural film and other production means and provided technical service, management training and sales service as well.

　　【Fixed-point poverty alleviation】In 2010, 210 provincial poverty alleviation units put in a total of 950 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds to support 244 projects in 215 towns of 17 counties (cities). According to the “Program for Performance Evaluation of Fixed-point Poverty Alleviation in Liaoning Province”, it conducted assessment and appraisal of 210 provincial helping units and the poverty alleviation cadres they dispatched. 110 units were titled as advanced units in fixed-point poverty alleviation and 173 sending cadres and contact persons for poverty alleviation were titled as advanced individuals in fixed-point poverty alleviation that year.

　　【Pilot projects of mutual funds】In 2010, the number of pilot villages for mutual funds in poor villages of Liaoning Province reached 300, of which: 90 were national pilot villages and 210 were provincial pilot villages. As of the end of 2010, the mutual funds amounted to 121.133 million Yuan, of which 88 million Yuan was provincial and central government’s anti-poverty funds and the rolling funds for entire village advancement in the past few years, accounting for 72.6%; 9.304 million Yuan was invested by rural households as participation fee of the mutual funds, accounting for 7.7%. There are 129,977 rural households in the 300 pilot villages, including 65,903 poor households. A total of 28,103 rural households participated in the mutual funds, of which 22,340 were poor households, accounting for 79.5% of the total rural households that participated in the mutual funds and 33.9% of the poor rural households.

　　【Main pro-poor measures】

1. Target at the poor and key poverty-stricken areas. The pro-poor measures must target at the registered poor and the anti-poverty funds should 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.

2. Improve the patterns for poverty alleviation and development. Continued the entire village advancement, poor labor transfer training, poverty alleviation by industrialization, relocation-based poverty reduction and fixed-point poverty alleviation. Taking entire village advancement as a platform, integrate various types of capital as matching funds for poverty reduction under the principle of “recording merits based on investments” to enhance the efficiency of financial anti-poverty funds. In Fuxin and other contiguous poor areas, it launched pilot contiguous projects for entire village advancement to accelerate the pace of poverty shaking off.

3. Innovate the mechanism for the use of anti-poverty funds. Based on the pilot mutual funds in poor villages, Liaoning Province strengthened the reform of the mechanism for supervision and use of anti-poverty funds and initially established a new mechanism for management of the use of anti-poverty funds which is conducive to the supervision of anti-poverty funds, the long-term use of anti-poverty funds, the expansion of the coverage of anti-poverty funds and the cooperation between poor people, and helps to enhance the self-development capacity of the poor.

4. Strengthen the monitoring and auditing work for poverty reduction. The province carried out statistical monitoring of poverty alleviation and development to understand the situation of the poor and the economic development and social progress in poor areas; established filing system for the poor, making records for each poor household, each village, each town and each county; launched the pilot projects for the effective convergence of the rural minimum living security system and pro-poor policy, laying a basis for the government to accurately identify the objects of poverty reduction and improve pro-poor measures; and conducted comprehensive and strict supervision on anti-poverty funds together with audit departments, effectively avoiding misappropriation of anti-poverty funds

　　【Review of decade of poverty alleviation and development】 Since 2001, Liaoning provincial party committee and government have seriously implemented the arrangements of the central government and State Council for poverty reduction work and the spirit of the "Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development of China's Rural Areas (2001-2010)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Outline"), determined the key work and objectives of poverty alleviation and development in the province in the period from 2001 to 2010 and developed the "Development Strategy for Making Breakthrough in Northwest of Liaoning". Focusing on 15 counties (cities) in the eastern and northwest poor areas, namely Chaoyang, Jianping, Kazuo, Lingyuan, Beipiao, Jianchang, Yixian, Fuxin, Zhangwu, Kangping, Xiuyan, Huanren, Xinbin, Qingyuan and Xifeng, it strived to solve the food and clothing problem of the poor and further improve the infrastructure and basic production and living conditions of poor areas so as to promote the comprehensive economic and social development of poverty-stricken areas and narrow the gap between developed areas and poor areas. After a decade of hard work, Liaoning has basically solved the food and clothing problem of the poor. In early 2001, it had a rural poor population of 2.3 million with per capita income of less than 1200 Yuan who still had no adequate food and clothing. By the end of 2007, the food and clothing problem of these people had been basically solved. In 2008, Liaoning Province enhanced the poverty line and identified the low-income people with per capita income below 1500 Yuan as objects of poverty reduction. It made records of 2.647 million poor people and the cities with a larger poor population included Chaoyang, Fuxin, Tieling, Jinzhou and Huludao, accounting for 70% of the total. The poor in the 15 key counties accounted for 60% of the total poor in the province. As of the end of 2010, the number of low-income poor people in Liaoning dropped to 1.057 million and rapid progress was made in economic and social development in poverty-stricken areas. The GDP of the 15 key counties reached 156 billion Yuan, local general budget revenue amounted to 10.12 billion Yuan and rural per capita net income reached 6160 Yuan, respectively 7.4, 11.6 and 4.6 times that in 2000. The infrastructure in poverty-stricken areas and the living conditions of the poor had been significantly improved.

1. Supportive policy. Liaoning provincial party committee and government always take poverty alleviation and development as a key livelihood project to be part of the assessment content for target responsibility system of the departments directly under the provincial government and various cities and practice one-vote negation system. The government continued to increase investment in the field of poverty reduction. In 2001, the provincial financial anti-poverty funds were 35.5 million Yuan. In 2010, the figure surged to 256.3 million Yuan, 7.2 times that of 2001. Strengthen policy support. In 2003, the General Office of the Provincial Government issued the "Notice on Accelerating the Formulation of Economic Development Planning for Northwest of Liaoning" (Liao Zheng Ban Fa [2003] No. 72) to make deployments for the economic development of Jinzhou, Fuxin, Tieling, Chaoyang and Huludao; the Provincial Department of Finance formulated the "Opinions on Promoting the Economic and Social Development of Key Counties and Ethnic Autonomous Counties in Northwest of Liaoning" (Liao Zheng Ban Fa [2003] No.65) and issued preferential policies for the incremental return of financial sharing revenue and subsidy for transfer payments, the development of education and rural public health in northwest areas. In 2008, the General Office of the Provincial Government forwarded the "Opinions on Future Poverty Alleviation and Development in Liaoning" (Liao Zheng Ban Fa [2008] No. 97) of the Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office and Provincial Department of Finance and proposed to increase investment in poverty reduction and enhance poverty line and subsidies for entire village advancement and relocation-based poverty alleviation.

2. Pro-poor measures. Implementation of entire village advancement. In 2002, the province identified 2739 key poverty-stricken villages with per capita income below 1200 Yuan and successively implemented entire village advancement in the villages in batches. The provincial government issued 500,000 Yuan of subsidy for each of the key poor villages covered by the supportive program and 250,000 Yuan for each of other poor villages, complemented by the subsidy of 250,000 Yuan from city or county government. As of the end of 2008, all the 2739 key poor villages were covered by the poverty reduction and almost achieved the goal of shaking off poverty. In 2009, Liaoning launched a new round of entire village advancement and enhanced the subsidy for each village from 500,000 Yuan to 700,000 Yuan. It identified 1697 provincial key poor villages with per capita income less than 1800 Yuan and planned to spend four years on entire village advancement of these villages. By the end of 2010, the project had been launched in 840 villages. Meanwhile, in accordance with the state’s deployments and arrangements, Liaoning increased efforts on poor labor transfer training, poverty reduction by industrialization, relocation-based poverty alleviation and fixed-point poverty reduction. In 2009, the provincial government started to issue funds for poor labor transfer trainings as subsidies. In 2010, there were 22 provincial poor labor transfer trainings and 103 city and county training bases in Liaoning Province, which could hold trainings for more than 20,000 people per year. Since 2005, Liaoning Province has identified three batches of provincial poverty alleviation leading enterprises, 178 in total. 24 of them were leading enterprises designated by the state. Meanwhile, the government relocated 3,000 households per year in poverty alleviation. In 2004, 12,000 Yuan of subsidy was issued to each immigrant household and the ratio of provincial, city and county-level funds was 5:5:2. In 2005, the county-level financial subsidy was reduced to 1000 Yuan while provincial subsidy was enhanced to 6000 Yuan. Since 2009, the subsidy standard for relocation in poverty alleviation was enhanced to 15,000 Yuan, of which 10,000 Yuan was from provincial government and 5000 Yuan was from city or county government. Over the decade, the province relocated 31,700 households and 109,000 people in the poverty reduction and fixed-point poverty reduction became an importance part of poverty alleviation and development. In 2001, the General Office of Provincial Party Committee and Government issued the “Implementation Program for Fixed-point Poverty Alleviation in Liaoning Province” to improve and standardize fixed-point poverty reduction and established the system for provincial leaders to regularly contact 15 key counties for poverty alleviation and development. In 2008, the General Office of Provincial Party Committee issued the “Opinions on the Fixed-point Poverty Alleviation in the New Era” (Liao Wei Ban Fa [2008] No. 11), adjusted the units and aided towns involved in fixed-point poverty reduction, increased pilot projects, expanded project area, strengthened the support for key counties in northwest areas, improved the assessment and incentive mechanism and reinforced the pertinence of poverty reduction. The number of the provincial departments and units involved in fixed-point poverty alleviation reached 210, the number of aided counties rose from 15 to 17 and the number of aided towns increased from 167 to 215. Over the decade, the helping units issued a total of 2.3 billion Yuan of anti-poverty funds for fixed-point poverty alleviation for the implementation of 4811 projects.