Shanghai-Yunnan Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation

　　【Overview】 In the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" period, Shanghai implemented the national regional development strategy and the "Guidance on East-West Pairing-off Cooperation for Poverty Reduction" issued by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development. Based on the actual situation of the twinned regions in Yunnan Province, adhering to the principle of "livelihood-oriented, focusing on industrial development, planning first and human resource support", it strived to help local residents solve “four basic” problems to speed up the pace of poverty alleviation and development and enhance the self-development capacity of local residents.

　　To implement the Central Committee’s instruction on strengthening support for Xinjiang and Tibet and a new round of western development, approved by the municipal government, Shanghai adjusted the leadership for counterpart support, removed the original leading group for pairing-off poverty alleviation and cooperation and exchange and set up Shanghai Leading Group for Counterpart Assistance, Cooperation and Exchange. Member of Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Secretary of Shanghai Party Committee Yu Zhengsheng personally acts as the head, Vice Secretary of Shanghai Party Committee and Mayor Han Zheng acts as the first deputy head and relevant department leaders of the Municipal Party Committee and Government act as the deputy heads with principles of relevant commissions, offices, bureaus and relevant districts and counties as the members. It also strengthened the capacity building of the leading group office, regularized relevant working systems and clarified the counterpart support funding measures. The adjustment showed the attitude and determination of the municipal government to implement the central government’s requirements for doing a good job of counterpart assistance, strengthened the overall leadership for the city’s counterpart assistance, cooperation and exchange and further implemented relevant responsibilities and requirements, which had an important and far-reaching impact on promoting the city’s counterpart support for poverty reduction, including support for Yunnan, and achieving the goal of “standing at top rankings in China”.

　　【Measures】 1. Emphasizing political awareness and bearing the overall situation in mind, deepen the construction of the systems for Shanghai-Yunnan pairing-off cooperation in poverty reduction. In accordance with the requirements of "striving to list among top rankings in China", Shanghai adjusted and strengthened the leadership system, working mechanism and safeguards for the counterpart support and made timely arrangements and coordination to promote the twinning poverty alleviation, forming the work pattern for 14 districts and two large-scale state-owned enterprises of Shanghai to support 26 key counties of Yunnan, focusing on anti-poverty work in Wenshan, Honghe, Pu’er and Diqing as well as De’ang and Dulong Nationality. The number of department collaboration working groups reached 20 and the anti-poverty work developed from traditional poverty alleviation and development towards comprehensive cooperation in economic and social development.

2. Do practical things for the poor to ensure that the results of poverty alleviation can further improve people’s livelihood. During the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" period, Shanghai’s anti-poverty funds for Yunnan kept growing by 10% and a total of 855 million Yuan was put in. 1,657 poverty relief projects were launched in the impoverished regions of Yunnan, including 1,099 entire village advancement projects, which directly benefited about 200,000 people. Adhering to the "two tilts", we conducted project selection, review, approval and implementation based on vital interests of the masses. According to relevant regulations, the anti-poverty funds provided by Shanghai mustn’t be invested in the construction of any expensive building project or political achievement project and the poverty relief projects mustn’t be named Shanghai or linked with Shanghai. The relief funds are mainly used for entire village advancement and the development of agricultural and featured industries. Some funds are allocated to support education, health care, science and technology as well as training projects. Through mobilizing the masses to participate in planning, construction and management, share the poverty relief results and improve production conditions and villages’ appearance, the government enhanced people’s mental state and confidence in shaking off poverty and building a well-off society.

3. Focus on making innovation and implementing pilot projects to provide references for large-scale poverty alleviation and development. We arrange pilot projects every year and give full play to their demonstration and exploratory role. Shanghai launched many pilot projects of "entire town planning, entire village advancement and contiguous development" in 31 towns of 26 counties in Sichuan Province with clearer township development objectives and path, and increased efforts on integration of resources for more visible demonstration effect of pilot projects. It strengthened poverty alleviation by industrial development and further explored effective ways for the pioneers in becoming rich to help the poor and for the development to rural collective economy. Over the five years, Shanghai invested 96 million Yuan and implemented 176 industrial development projects for poverty reduction, which encouraged the construction of featured industrial zones and large-scale farming bases and the establishment of long-term mechanism. Meanwhile, we supported the launching of featured farm produce in Shanghai Market, held in Shanghai the Spring Fair of Featured Agricultural Products of the twinned regions and built marketing platforms for the twinned regions to pour their featured farm produce into ordinary people's family.

4. Attach importance to cooperation and overall planning to enhance the overall efficiency of the counterpart support work. Shanghai’s counterpart assistance is under the unified leadership of local party committee and government and is included in local economic and social development planning. We often ask for instructions of and report to the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development and make close liaison and coordination with Yunnan. Relying on the professional strengths and resources of Shanghai’s districts, counties, commissions, offices, bureaus, enterprises and social organizations, we made steady progress in the counterpart poverty alleviation in Yunnan. With a concept of system integration, through combining blood transfusion with blood making, combining software and hardware and combining the current needs with long-term development, we not only attached importance to entire village advancement to improve the masses’ living conditions, but also paid attention to industrial poverty alleviation to consolidate the foundation for people’s income growth; not only stressed infrastructure construction, but also put emphasis on intellectual support, functional support and the improvement of quality; not only attached importance to addressing urgent problems of the masses for quick effect, but also explored path for impoverished areas to shake off poverty and become rich based on local situation. Focusing on entire village advancement, combined with the development of featured industries and social undertakings, enterprises’ economic cooperation, human resource development and public participation, we formed joint forces for large-scale poverty reduction. Taking the opportunity of Shanghai World Expo and the construction of "four centers" and Yunnan Province’s "bridgehead", we strived to promote the stable and sound development of economic cooperation and implemented 649 cooperation projects with 9.03 billion Yuan of investment, covering traditional industries, emerging industries and modern services. In accordance with the principle of "giving priority to urgent, practical and effective projects", we helped the twinned counties to train 73,000 cadres for new rural construction, coordinated urban-rural development and minorities, agricultural agents, key teachers, primary care personnel, etc.

　　【Yunnan involved in a series of activities of Shanghai World Expo】Taking the anti-poverty cooperation as a link, Yunnan provided selfless support for Shanghai World Expo in the whole process. It organized the design team composed of domestic, Japanese, European, HK and Taiwanese top-ranking florists to offer floral services for Shanghai World Expo and provided its highest-level "Huangying", "Huaguiren" and "Ashima" products with intellectual property rights to embellish the World Expo, showing the high level of development of flower industry in Yunnan. Located in the Chinese Provinces Pavilion, Yunnan Pavilion is surrounded by the Kunming’s ancient building "Golden Horse Plaza", Dali’s Bai residential screen wall and Xishuangbanna’s Dai gate tower. The dignified square, unique minority dance and colorful exhibits seem outstanding in the pavilions, highly praised by domestic and foreign guests and tourists. In the 184 days of exhibition, Yunnan Pavilion received 12 million tourists.

　　From August 27 to 31, 2010, "Yunnan Week" Activity of Shanghai World Expo was successfully carried out. Member of the Political Bureau of CPC Central Committee and Secretary of Shanghai Municipal Party Committee Yu Zhengsheng and Secretary of CPC Yunnan Provincial Committee and Director of the Standing Committee of Yunnan Provincial People's Congress Bai Enpei attended the opening ceremony of "Yunnan Week" Shanghai World Expo themed "Celebrations of All Ethnic Groups of Yunnan in Shanghai World Expo". More than 700 dancers from 26 ethnic nationalities of Yunnan Province carried out various activities to celebrate the World Expo, including float parade, square performances, large-scale ethnic dance performances, ethnic clothing display, intangible cultural heritage show, etc, showing Yunnan’s charming scenery  rich ethnic customs. During that period, Yunnan also organized the "God Yunnan" giant-screen painting and calligraphy exhibition in Shanghai International Exhibition Center, presented a musical performance titled "Love for Lijiang" at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center, carried out other economic and trade cooperation, investment promotion and cultural exchange activities and achieved fruitful results. Meanwhile, the activity of "Hand-in-hand Sunshine Sharing of the Youth from Shanghai and Yunnan in Shanghai World Expo" was launched. Representatives of ethnic minority children from Yunnan Province exchanged seeds of trees and plants of Yunnan and the latest version of e-books with the representatives of Shanghai’s children and enjoyed themselves in Shanghai World Expo.

　　【Support for Deang Nationality】From 2006 to 2010, through the platform for supporting minorities established by Shanghai Municipal Commission of Ethnic and Religious Affairs and Yunnan Provincial Ethnic Affairs Commission, Shanghai provided anti-poverty support for 80 Deang villages in Dehong, Lincang and Baoshan Prefecture, signed the "Agreement on the Implementation of Shanghai’s Anti-poverty Projects in Deang Nationality", developed the "Regulations on Management of Shanghai’s Anti-poverty Funds in Deang" and invested a total of 36,889,080 Yuan (of which 25 million Yuan was from Shanghai Municipal Government and  11,889,100 Yuan was from Shanghai Municipal Commission of Ethnic and Religious Affairs) to construct 457 poverty relief projects in Yunnan. Yunnan Provincial Ethnic Affairs Commission issued matching funds of 11.62 million Yuan. Through joint efforts, 17,800 Deang people had shaken off poverty and great changes happened to various undertakings. Infrastructure was improved, safe houses were built for 659 households, thatched houses were completely eliminated; 1,222 biogas digesters and supportive pens and toilets were newly built or renovated. Meanwhile, the project completed construction of village roads of 68.42 kilometers and 27 cultural activity rooms, set up transmission lines of 5 kilometers, built 24 reservoirs, laid pipelines of 49.42 kilometers and dug irrigation ditches of 14.7 kilometers, etc. Meanwhile, it optimized the industrial development structure. Based on local climate and environmental characteristics, it focused on the development of tea, macadamia nuts, star anise and bamboo of 17,000 mu and bred 7,342 head of livestock. At the end of 2009, the rural per capita income was 2738 Yuan and per capita grain possession was 434 kilograms, respectively 1,903 Yuan and 102 kilograms more than that before the anti-poverty project construction. In addition, the quality of the masses was constantly improved. Through establishing Santaishan Town Agricultural Technical School and Luxi Youth Job Skills Training Base, they organized trainings for 4158 person-times and 301 teachers. All the 30 Deang young people who attended the first phase of training found jobs.

　　【Poverty alleviation in health care】 According to national health care reform program and the requirements of the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai organized 19 third-class hospitals to provide counterpart support for 19 county hospitals of 16 prefectures. Since 2010, with three year as a cycle, through sending excellent medical staff to give on-site instructions, organize trainings and receiving medical staffs of recipient hospitals to study in Shanghai, supporting a number of featured and key departments and organizing training courses and distance education, it strived to enhance the service capacity and level of the county-hospitals and finally help them reach the level of Class-II A health care agencies.

　　According to the decision of relevant meeting and the spirit of the city leaders’ instructions, the support for health care this time was included in Shanghai’s counterpart support for poverty reduction in Yunnan and Shanghai must provide necessary support with special funds for counterpart assistance, cooperation and exchange. In addition to offering subsidies for medical staffs’ study in Shanghai, local trainings and distance education, it should give priority to the medical device purchase needs of four county-level hospitals in the twinned areas. After achieving certain results, the practice can be introduced to other county-level hospitals.

　　【Sales of agricultural products of twinned regions in Shanghai】 In 2010, special funds were allocated to support the establishment of "Yunnan Pavilion" in Shanghai Western Suburb  International Agricultural Products Exhibition Center to open up a window for Yunnan’s farm produce to enter Shanghai, the market in East China and even overseas market. We established an e-commerce platform for agricultural products of twinned regions of C-hand Net jointly with East Net to increase the income of the twinned regions through online shopping, group purchase, direct marketing, distribution, etc; and continued to develop Shanghai market for the farm produce of the four prefectures (cities). In November 2010, the 10th "Chinese Tea Festival" of Pu'er City was held in Shanghai, not in local area for the first time, and a series of activities were carried out in the Old Chenghuang Temple, including display of Pu’er tea and tourism products, investment promotion, the tea ceremony performances, folk dance performances, etc. Honghe Prefecture set up the agricultural product marketing center in Shanghai, opened one 60-square meters sales department respectively in Changning District, Fengxian District, Xuhui District and Qingpu District, held in Shanghai the Spring Festival Agricultural Fairs and organized 16 local enterprises of Honghe Prefecture to introduce and sell the farm produce with Honghe’s characteristics. Diqing Prefecture opened agricultural product sales department in Jiading District and organized media campaigns, promotional program and free tasting activities to build the image of Shangri-la ecological healthy agricultural products and enhance the products’  reputation and competitiveness.

　　【12th joint conference on Shanghai - Yunnan pairing-off cooperation for poverty reduction】The “Yunnan Week” of Shanghai World Expo 2010 was opened in Shanghai on August 28. Member of Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Secretary of Shanghai Party Committee and Head of Shanghai Municipal Leading Group for Counterpart Support, Cooperation and Exchange Yu Zhengsheng, Vice Secretary of Shanghai Party Committee, Mayor of Shanghai and Deputy Head of Shanghai Municipal Leading Group for Counterpart Support, Cooperation and Exchange Han Zheng, Vice Chairman of People's Political Consultative Feng Guoqin, Secretary of CPC Yunnan Provincial Committee and Director of the Standing Committee of Yunnan Provincial People's Congress Bai Enpei, Deputy Secretary of CPC Yunnan Provincial Committee and the Head of Yunnan Leading Group for Shanghai – Yunnan Pairing-off Cooperation for Poverty Reduction Li Jiheng, Chairman of the Provincial People's Political Consultative Wang Xueren, and Shen Hongguang, Ding Xuexiang, Chen Hao, Hu Yanzhao, Yang Yingnan, Qi Zhala, Yan Youqiong, Kong Chuizhu and Liu Ping attended the event.

　　Yu Zhengsheng expressed his gratitude to Yunnan for its support for Shanghai, especially for the holding of Shanghai World Expo, and pointed out that Shanghai can only achieve better self-development in the process of serving the whole county of China. He said that Shanghai will, in accordance with the requirements of central government, take its responsibility to provide counterpart support for poverty reduction in the “12th Five-Year Plan” period and will strengthen the counterpart support year by year rather than decreasing the efforts. Bai Enpei expressed his gratitude to Shanghai for its support. He said that there is a huge gap in development between Yunnan and the eastern provinces and municipalities and we must further emancipate our mind, deepen reform, expand opening up, bring advantages into play and break through the bottlenecks to embark on a development path with our own characteristics. He proposed to establish a long-term mechanism for Shanghai – Yunnan pairing-off cooperation in poverty reduction and suggested we promote the cooperation through anti-poverty work and accelerate the development by cooperation.

　　Han Zheng introduced the anti-poverty cooperation between Yunnan and Shanghai and pointed out that Shanghai should pay attention to three points in the anti-poverty work, i.e.: system building, improvement of people’s livelihood and supporting the long-term development of local areas. Shanghai will increase efforts on capital project construction, development of planning and mechanism establishment in the future, and will pay more attention to interactive development and pattern innovation and further improve aid effectiveness. Li Jiheng introduced Yunnan’s guiding line for poverty alleviation and development in the “12th Five-Year Plan” period and put forward five suggestions on strengthening Shanghai – Yunnan Cooperation: Scientifically develop the planning for Shanghai – Yunnan pairing-off cooperation for poverty reduction in the  “12th Five-Year Plan” period; strengthen the support for impoverished people in minority and border areas; increase efforts on poverty alleviation in education, health care and human resource development; explore approaches to entire town/village advancement and contiguous development; and jointly participate in the construction of "bridgehead" opened to southwestern areas by Yunnan. Li Jiheng and Vice Mayor of Shanghai Hu Yanzhao signed the joint meeting minutes. Shanghai decided to increase 30 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds for Yunnan.

　　【Results of Shanghai - Yunnan economic cooperation in the "11th Five-Year Plan" period】 During the "11th Five-Year Plan" period, various departments, prefectures, cities, districts and counties of Shanghai and Yunnan actively participated in the economic cooperation, and the scale of economic cooperation was obviously expanded. Shanghai implemented 649 economic cooperative projects in Yunnan Province and actually issued 9.03 billion Yuan of anti-poverty funds, respectively up 169% and 50.3% compared with that in the "10th Five-Year Plan" period. In 2010 alone, it implemented 101 economic cooperative projects and invested 2.81 billion Yuan. The investment structure became more rational. The projects extended from agriculture, food processing and medicine industry to new energy, new material and other emerging industries, and developed towards trading, logistics, financial, comprehensive tourism development and other modern services. Investment in service industry accounted for more than half of the total investment. More activities for investment inviting were carried out. A series of activities were launched in Shanghai and Yunnan, mainly for investment promotion, project introduction and so on, including featured trade fairs such as East China Fair, Kunming Trade Fair and Tourism Trade Fair, which increased the channels for exchanges and cooperation between the two sides. Breakthrough was made in strategic cooperation. Shanghai Guangming Group invested 800 million Yuan to acquire 60% of the equity of Yunnan Yingmao Group to create the largest domestic sugar industry integrating production and marketing, which was the largest cooperation project in China’s sugar industry. Meanwhile, relevant policy support was strengthened. The investment environment of the twinned regions was constantly optimized, the East-West e-commerce platform was set up and there are a growing number of economic interactions between the chambers of commerce and people of the two places.

　　【Yunnan Province donated two rare Lufeng dinosaur fossils to Shanghai】 To show the long-standing friendship between the people of Shanghai and Yunnan, approved by the Ministry of Land and Resources, Yunnan Province decided to donate to Shanghai two rare Lufeng dinosaur fossils – the greatest treasures of Yunnan Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo Park. On the opening ceremony of Yunnan Week Shanghai World Expo, Chairman of Shanghai Committee of the CPPCC Feng Guoqin accepted the certificate of dinosaur fossil collection on behalf of Shanghai Municipality from Chairman of Yunnan Committee of CPPCC Wang Xueren. These two Lufeng dinosaur fossils are 180 million years old. The bigger one was a gigantic Lufeng dinosaur of 10 meters long and 4.6 meters high, belonging to sauropod plant-eating dinosaur, and lived in the early Jurassic period 180 million years ago. The smaller one was a plant-eating Hsu Lufengosaurus of 6.4 meters long and 3.5 meters high, which lived in the late Triassic and early Jurassic period 180 million years ago. After the World Expo, the dinosaur fossils were officially handed over to Shanghai. They were first exhibited at the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, and will be finally sent to the newly built Shanghai Natural History Museum.

　　Lufeng dinosaur fossils have high scientific value and are the most entertaining dinosaur fossils. Lufeng dinosaur fossils were discovered in February 1997, when eight dinosaur fossils and five turtle fossils were discovered in an area of 440 square meters, which was called a miracle in the history of dinosaur fossil excavation. American dinosaur expert Professor Kens Rugby praised: "It irrefutably proved that Lufengchuan Street has the most dinosaur fossils with the highest scientific value in the world. It was also unique in the world to discover the dinosaur fossils of both early Jurassic and middle Jurassic period in the same place."

　　【Poverty reduction by drought relief】From Autumn 2009 to April 2010, China's southwest regions suffered from serious drought rarely seen in history, particularly in Yunnan Province, etc. There were widespread water shortages and less drinking water for people and livestock. The spring production situation was grim and the ability of the masses to withstand drought and raise funds for problem addressing was constantly weakened. With love for the disaster-affected people, Shanghai Municipal Government decided to donate 5 million Yuan respectively for Yunnan, Guangxi and Guizhou, 15 million Yuan in total to support the self-help of the masses in production and living and support the disaster relief work. All circles of society donated money, materials and drinking water for disaster areas and contacted technical departments to help local well digging. Shanghai Railway Bureau and other transportation enterprises actively deployed capacity to support the disaster areas and delivered a total of 380,000 boxes of bottled drinking water donated by enterprises and social forces to Yunnan, which alleviated the drinking water problem of the masses in 16 counties and cities seriously hit by the droughts. Shanghai’s temporary cadres and working staffs in Yunnan actively devoted to the disaster relief under the leadership of local party committee and government to guarantee supply of drinking water, spring sowing and relevant work of local areas, ensuring the basic livelihood water safety of local masses and making a contribution to overcoming the rare serious drought.