Poverty Alleviation and Development in Gansu Province

　　【Overview】 In 2010, the number of the rural poor with per capita net income below 1196 Yuan was 3.098 million (sample monitoring data of the National Bureau of Statistics) and the incidence of poverty was 14.8%. Gansu Province has 43 national key counties, 4 provincial key counties and 6 “three west” counties (Hexi, Dingxi and Xihaigu of Ningxia, the first pilot area for regional poverty alleviation and development area in China) for poverty alleviation. It has a total of 70 counties, cities and districts involved in poverty alleviation, including the key counties, accounting for 80.4% of the total (86) counties, cities and districts in the province; 926 key towns and 8,825 key villages for poverty alleviation, respectively accounting for 59.9% and 49.3% of the total.

　　In 2010, taking advantage of the historic opportunities of west development and central government’s support for economic and social development in the province, making clear pro-poor policies and investment priorities, Gansu Province successfully completed the poverty reduction of more than 400,000 people and made the growth rate of rural per capita net income of 51 key counties for poverty alleviation and development surpass the provincial average.

　　【Poverty reduction program】 In accordance with the outline for rural poverty alleviation and development in the next decade issued by LGOP and the policy on development of planning for the poverty alleviation and development in the “12th Five-Year Plan” period, Gansu Provincial Leading Group for Poverty Alleviation and Development set up the Planning Drafting Coordination Group to carry out field research in key counties and poor villages for post-disaster reconstruction. Gansu Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office Party Organization successively held the work conference on directors, party conference, enlarged party conference, the meeting for directors of poverty alleviation offices in the province and the seminar on poverty reduction in Gansu Province, seriously discussed and sought opinions on implementation methods and plan, forming the “Planning for Rural Poverty Alleviation and Development of Gansu Province in the ‘12th Five-Year Plan’ Period” (draft for discussion). The planning for poverty alleviation and development in minority areas (including Tibetan areas), old revolutionary base areas, “two west” project areas (including central arid mountain areas and poor immigrant areas in Hexi) and southern cold mountain areas is also being prepared.

　　【Investment of anti-poverty funds】 A total of 1.676 billion Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds was issued to Gansu Province, of which 1.292 billion Yuan was central government’s anti-poverty funds and provincial matching funds under the management of the Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office. The total anti-poverty funds increased by 196 million Yuan and the central government’s development funds increased by 191 million Yuan over 2009, up 23%.

　　【Entire village advancement】 Gansu Province implemented entire village advancement projects in 599 villages and 17 national and provincial pilot projects for “county-based entire village advancement and contiguous development by integrating funds”. The investment in entire village advancement accounted for more than 50% of the total anti-poverty funds of the province.

　　【Industrial poverty alleviation】 Based on the “Six Actions” to increase the income of farmers and in order to achieve the goal of “four 10 million mu” in the province, Gansu strengthened support for seed breeding system, standardized production bases, leading enterprises and marketing subjects. In Zhangyi Town of Liangzhou District, for example, the ginseng growing base area reached 1500 mu with annual output of 35,000 tons and ginseng fruit has become a pillar industry to increase the income of local farmers. 60% of the ginseng fruit in Beijing Xinfadi Agricultural Product Wholesale Market are from Gansu. For another example, Dingxi’s virus-free potato planting base and potato deep processing base witnessed rapid development and the walnut, pepper, olive, tea and apple-based featured industries in Longnan, Linxia, Tianshui and Pingliang developed well.

　　【Labor force transfer】 In 2010, Gansu organized trainings for 106,700 poor people and 60,000 “two backward students”, held skills trainings for 46,700 people, recruited 440 students for the pilot work of “one university graduate for one village” and exported 3 million labors of poor areas, including 1.5 million poor labors, and the annual per capita labor service income was nearly 9,000 Yuan.

　　【Social poverty alleviation】 The province increased efforts on social poverty alleviation. Xiamen City was added to provide counterpart support for Linxia Prefecture, the Organization Department of the Central Committee was designated to provide counterpart support for Zhouqu County, CNOOC was appointed to provide twinning support for Hezuo City and Xiahe County, the State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) was arranged to support Tongwei County and China Banking Regulatory Commission were designated to support Hezheng County. The aiding units invested a total of 179 million Yuan in kind and cash in 2010. SERC put in anti-poverty funds of 23.55 million Yuan to implement the electricity poverty relief project by upgrading rural power grid in Tongwei County and made Tongwei the “demonstration county for rural power grid upgrading” in Gansu Province.

　　【Poverty alleviation by science and technology】 In 2010, the province organized trainings for 12,000 science and technology demonstration households and 106,700 poor people, completed the training of 60,000 “two backward students” - one of the 14 practical things to improve people’s livelihood, held skills trainings for 46,700 people, recruited 440 students for the pilot projects of “one university graduate for one village”, relocated 10,000 households and 40,392 people affected in disasters to other provinces and transferred 20,000 labors of poor areas to the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta and Xinjiang, etc.

　　【Infrastructure construction and post-disaster reconstruction】 Combined with post-disaster reconstruction, ecologic relocation, new rural construction, overall planning and comprehensive governance, the province actively promoted the construction of "lifeline" projects such as farmland, water conservancy, road, housing and energy project, which significantly improved the production and living conditions of poverty-stricken areas. After the "5.12" earthquake and "8.8" debris flow, Gannan and Longnan steadily promoted the post-disaster restoration and reconstruction. Longnan City alone completed the post-disaster reconstruction of 335 poor villages.

　　【Convergence of two systems】 In 2010, pilot projects for the effective convergence of two systems were implemented in 55 counties of Gansu Province. The Provincial Party Committee and Government attached great importance to the work. Governor Liu Weiping conducted field research in Zhang County and the provincial government held the videophone conference on the pilot work of effective convergence of two systems to make overall arrangements for the construction of pilot projects. So far, relevant department are doing the filing, information entry and data uploading work. In the pilot counties, a total of 7.8423 million poor people were identified, accounting for 55.05% of the rural population of the 55 pilot counties.

　　【Legislation for poverty alleviation】 Since 2009, the province specially organized relevant personnel to carry out study on legislation for poverty alleviation and field research for and drafting work of the "Regulations on Poverty Alleviation". After making extensive surveys, carrying out studies inside and outside the province and seeking opinions of all parties, relevant department finally developed the “Regulations on Rural Poverty Alleviation and Development in Gansu Province” (draft for discussion), which was included in legistrative plan of the provincial People's Congress in November 2010. Now, the legislation work has entered the legal procedures.