China ‘willing to bring benefits’ of poverty alleviation to countries

CHINA’S poverty-relief campaign has brought benefits at home and abroad.

“We are willing to share our experience in poverty reduction with the rest of the world and make utmost efforts in helping others. We are especially willing to bring benefits to neighboring countries in South and Southeast Asia with our development to realize social stability and economic prosperity in the region,” said Ruan Chengfa, governor of Yunnan Province, at a sub-forum of the fifth ChinaSouth Asia Expo, which ended on Wednesday.

Since the reform and opening-up, large-scale development-oriented poverty relief efforts led by the Chinese government have yielded significant results. Between 1978 and 2014, over 700 million people in China were lifted out of poverty.

From 2012 to 2017, China lifted nearly 70 million rural people out of poverty, and the poverty rate fell from 10.2 percent to 3.1 percent.

According to the forum organizer, with cooperation and exchanges enhanced between China and countries in South and Southeast Asia, poverty reduction cooperation projects have been launched over the past years.

The projects alleviate poverty in targeted areas, improve conditions in communities, enhance self-development, diversify streams of income, and provide examples for countries to eliminate poverty and improve livelihoods, Ruan said.

As a border province in southwest China and a gateway to Southeast and South Asia, Yunnan has invested over 38 billion yuan (US$5.9 billion) over the past five years to lift nearly 5.6 million people out of poverty, with the provincial government and local enterprises successfully sharing their experience in poverty relief with countries in the wider region.

In 2006, the Yunnan State Farms Group formed a subsidiary company in Laos and launched a project to develop that country’s natural rubber plantation to help locals escape poverty.

The company has opened 18 rubber planting bases in nine counties in Laos with a plantation area of nearly 6,000 hectares, employing over 6,000 local villagers and more than 100,000 short-term workers. The annual income per villager has risen to 20,000 yuan (US$3,081) from 2,000 yuan.

The huge rubber market potential also lured locals to plant a further 7,300 hectares of rubber trees in the region, creating demand for industry professionals.

Lao resident Naingwin, 24, and her husband are both beneficiaries of the project.

Before 2007, the only thing that Naingwin could do for a living was farming in Pentong village where four of her family members were crowded in a small thatched cottage.

“Life was rough. We ate what we planted and barely had any income,” Naingwin said.

A life-changing opportunity came in 2011 when she started working at the Chinese company’s rubber planting base in Xayabouly, one of the largest rubber trees planting regions in Laos.

She and her husband are responsible for gathering latex from rubber trees. Their jobs now bring her family more than 50,000 yuan a year.