Migrant Workers

China is encouraging migrant workers to return home and start their own businesses amid efforts to spur rural development and reduce poverty.

The government will unveil more policies to support migrant workers who want to start businesses in their hometowns, with some of the policies set to be piloted in Jiangxi and Henan provinces before being rolled out nationwide, according to Meng Wei, spokesperson for the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country’s top economic planner.

This comes after the country revealed a strategy to bring prosperity to its rural areas, as stated in the No. 1 central document of 2018.

In hope of a better life, millions of young rural laborers have left their hometowns in recent decades to work in cities, leaving old people and children behind in their home villages.

The return of skilled and experienced migrant workers can help promote social and economic development in rural areas and ultimately invigorate rural development, said Zhang Deyong, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Last month, the NDRC released a plan ordering local authorities, commercial banks and financing guarantee firms to expand financial support for returning migrant workers who plan to start businesses.

China had more than 286.5 million migrant workers at the end of 2017, up 1.7 percent from one year earlier, the pace of growth picking up from 1.5 percent in 2016 and 1.3 percent in 2015.

More than 7 million migrant workers have returned to their hometowns to start their own businesses, and each new entrepreneur helps boost local employment by providing an average of four new employment opportunities, according to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.