Qingdao - Guizhou Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation

　　【Overview】 In 2010, Qingdao City highlighted the priorities and strengthened relevant measures to promote the East-West Pairing-off Cooperation for Poverty Reduction. It invested a total of 16.8 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds in the whole year, of which 8.4 million Yuan was invested respectively to Anshun City and Tongren. Five categories of 111 poverty relief projects were constructed in Anshun City and Tongren of Guizhou Province, including 22 development-oriented village poverty relief projects, 21 key industrial projects, 10 infrastructure projects for key villages, one poverty-relief cadre training project, 2 labor training and transfer projects and 57 drought relief projects in development-oriented poverty relief villages, and 641,000 pieces of clothes and bedding were donated. Through counterpart support to address the road, human drinking water, rural house renovation and industrial development problems of development-oriented poverty-relief villages and project construction in the villages, it has improved the production and living conditions of impoverished villages, promoted poverty reduction, had a significant demonstration effect and effectively promoted the poverty alleviation and development and disaster relief work in Anshun City and Tongren of Guizhou Province. Qingdao City also organized Qingdao’s Haier, Hisense, Red Star, Double Star and other large enterprises (groups) to carry out economic cooperation in Guiyang, Zunyi, Anshun, Tongren Prefecture, Bijie and Qiannan of Guizhou Province, which boosted local economic development, increased employment opportunities, promoted poverty alleviation and development and achieved remarkable results.

　　【Construction of “development-oriented poverty alleviation villages”】 Qingdao City conscientiously implemented the requirement of “entire village advancement” in poverty alleviation and development of impoverished villages put forward by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, organized the construction of “development-oriented poverty alleviation villages” in Anshun City and Tongren and achieved good results. It selected some poor counties in Anshun and Tongren of Guizhou to construct 22 “development-oriented poverty alleviation villages” with a total of 10 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds. It mainly constructed more than 80 “five types of small-sized projects”, including grassroots organization construction, medical service, primary school building, TV relaying and production projects. It combined the construction of “development-oriented poverty alleviation villages” with the building of new socialist countryside in Anshun and Tongren and, through project construction, solved the food and clothing problem of 1,500 people living in absolute poverty and 2,000 low-income poor people.

　　【Disaster relief】 In early 2010, Guizhou suffered from a severe drought. Qingdao adjusted the year-beginning project plan and invested 2 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds. Qingdao’s districts, cities, Red Cross and civil societies donated 1 million Yuan and winter clothes and beddings to the disaster-hit areas, supported Anshun City and Tongren to construct canals, reservoirs, wells, pumping irrigation, water delivery and other drought relief and post-disaster reconstruction work, constructed infrastructure projects in over 40 towns of 12 counties, including irrigation projects and drinking water projects for people, which enhanced the ability of local area to withstand droughts. When Anshun City suffered devastating floods, Qingdao issued anti-poverty funds to support the disaster relief o and the post-disaster reconstruction of local area. Before the arrival of the winter, in order to help the affected people pass the winter, Qingdao City actively organized disaster-relief activities. Cadres and the masses put forward the slogan of "support the affected people with true love", carried forward the national traditions and spirit of the times of "one in trouble, all to help" and donated cotton clothes and bedding to the disaster-hit areas of Gansu and Guizhou. They donated and delivered a total of 960,000 pieces of cotton clothes and quilts to the disaster areas of Gansu and Guizhou, including 641,000 for disaster-hit areas of Guizhou Province. Qingdao Port Group Co., Ltd is a unit of Qingdao that won the "National Donations Award". In the donation activity, the company actively mobilized cadres and staffs to donate for disaster areas and, despite heavy production task and work, actively delivered the clothing and bedding to disaster-hit areas. Qingdao’s support for disaster relief of Guizhou improved the most basic production and living conditions of the poor and supported the recovery of life and development of production of the affected people.

　　【Poverty alleviation by industrialization】 In 2010, Qingdao City invested anti-poverty funds for Anshun City and Tongren to buy seeds and develop out-of-season vegetable growing, quality fruit tree planting and quality grain industry, focusing on expansion of tea bases. While laying a solid foundation for the development of tea industry, it also helped to construct boar breeding demonstration bases to promote boar breeding technology, creating good conditions for farmers to increase income and broadened the channels for income generation. It strengthened the rural infrastructure construction in Anshun City and Tongren, built roads of 90 kilometers and solved the drinking water problems of 300,000 people. Qingdao also allocated anti-poverty funds to guide industrial development direction and support regional pillar rural industries together with local matching funds. It built village-level highroads of 50 kilometers to address the highroad problems of 8 villages; implemented 4 drinking water projects for human being to solve the drinking water problems of 12,000 rural residents; and built three village-level pedestrian bridges.

　　【Poverty alleviation by education】In 2010, Qingdao fundamentally supported Anshun City and Tongren to enhance development capabilities, invested in poverty alleviation funds, continued to support the human resource development in Anshun and Tongren, funded local poor villages’ school and cultural center building and helped out-of-school children to complete primary school education, widely praised by the local masses. Ocean University of China signed with Tongren the agreement on aquaculture education and training of students and supported local personnel training for aquaculture. The training of poverty relief cadres for Anshun City and Tongren of Guizhou Province were held in Qingdao Administration College and over 60 people attended the training. Based on the current status of poverty alleviation and economic development in Qingdao and Guizhou since the reform and opening up, the government strengthened trainings on urban-rural coordination and community management. Through inviting experts to give lectures, it organized the trainees to visit Qingdao’s new countryside, new communities and competitive enterprises and, through combining theory with practice, helped the participants to understand the basic experience of eastern regions in economic development, new rural construction, township system reform and innovation, promoting the harmonious development of new rural areas, land acquisition interest conflicts in the urbanization process and the coordination, characteristics and innovation of urban management, new practices for construction of featured neighborhoods, digital city management, etc. Through attending the training, the participants from Anshun City and Tongren of Guizhou Province broadened their horizons, learned the relevant theory and knowledge and enhanced their ability to promote the poverty alleviation and development, urban-rural coordination, improvement of people’s livelihood and harmonious development of society in the new era.

　　【Economic and trade cooperation】 In 2010, Qingdao City continued to adopt relevant measures for enterprises to boost economic development in the east-west pairing-off cooperation for poverty reduction. First, coordinate Qingdao’s enterprises in Guizhou. Qingdao’s large-scale famous enterprises developed well in Guizhou Province. Haier Group constructed the Southwest Haier Refrigerator Manufacturing Base in Zunyi with annual output of 1 million refrigerators and the sales market was expanded to cover nine provinces and one city in the south of the Yangtze River. Hisense Group established the industrial park in Guiyang Economic Zone and its color TV and flat-panel TV sales covered the southwest, northwest and southern provinces and cities of China and Myanmar and other countries and regions. After investing in barium carbonate production in Anshun City of Guizhou, Red Star Group successively invested in Tongren, Bijie and Qiannan Prefecture of Guizhou and launched new businesses with local resources. Red Star Group’s enterprise in Guizhou has passed the ISO14001 environment system certification and was granted the title of "Environment-friendly Enterprise in Guizhou Province". With good economic effectiveness, it has grown into a large manufacturer of barium carbonate, strontium carbonate, electrolytic manganese dioxide in the world with a complete production chain and begins to transit from a resource-based enterprise to a technology-intensive enterprise. Under the leadership of the company, barium salt and manganese salt have become internationally competitive industries in Guizhou Province. The development of Red Start Company in Guizhou has not only provided employment opportunities for a number of poor people, but also boosted the development of local mining, transportation and service industry. Red Star Company's industrial chain continued to extend towards high-tech, sophisticated and high value-added technology. The upstream and downstream industries and enterprises also continued to gather to the west, forming the industrial cluster, which boosted local industrial upgrading. Red Star Company also carried out public welfare activities in Guizhou. It built schools and highroads, installed TV and laid pipelines in the surrounding areas and subsidized out-of-school children to continue their studies, which promoted the harmonious development of the enterprise and surrounding areas. The companies in the western regions helped local enterprises to achieve revenue of 300 million Yuan every year and directly and indirectly provided employment opportunities for 10,000 people, which brought about good social, environmental and economic benefits.

　　Qingdao City also organized and coordinated local well-known enterprises to conduct assets reorganization in Guizhou, helped some local enterprises grow into competitive businesses, and directly and indirectly provided working posts for a large number of people, which effectively boosted the development of relevant industries in local area and over 50 matching enterprises were set up. Qingdao’s enterprises implemented the talent localization strategy and mainly used local cadres as management in production and operation to train high-quality industrial personnel for Guizhou Province.

　　【Working mechanism】 Qingdao City has included the counterpart support into the government’s work schedule. On the counterpart support summarizing and commending meeting, the government proposed to increase efforts on east-west pairing-off cooperation for poverty reduction and actively implement the requirements of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development on allocating counterpart support funds, included funding for anti-poverty work in Anshun and Tongren of Guizhou into the fiscal budget of Qingdao City and the fiscal budget of 12 districts, and coordinated the timely allocation of anti-poverty funds of various districts to ensure the timely completion of the aid projects. The whole city actively participated in the counterpart support work and conducted warmth delivery activities for poverty alleviation. The 12 districts and cities of Qingdao were designated to support 12 poor counties of Anshun and Tongren, which promoted the exchanges of personnel and economic cooperation. They actively participated in the construction of local “development-oriented poverty alleviation villages” and the departments directly under the city government organized poverty relief activities by educational and cultural development and women efforts. As a result, the east-west pairing-off poverty alleviation was popularly supported and participated. Qingdao City also strengthened the exchanges with Guizhou Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office, Anshun City and Tongren. Relevant leaders of Qingdao Counterpart Support Department conducted field research in Anshun and Tongren of Guizhou and held talks with the party and government leaders of Guizhou Provincial Office Poverty Alleviation and Development, Anshun City and Tongren Prefecture. At the beginning of 2010, they talked about the annual plan for the counterpart support work and confirmed the plan by document issuance. The two sides organized 20 enterprises to carry out investigations and negotiations to strengthen the economic cooperation and investment invitation. Qingdao also participated in the counterpart support work conference organized by Guizhou Provincial Office Poverty Alleviation and Development. Qingdao Municipal Domestic Economic Cooperation Office discussed pairing-off poverty relief measures through holding talks with Guizhou Provincial Office Poverty Alleviation and Development, Anshun City and Tongren to enhance the actual effects of the counterpart support.