The 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) announced the goal of helping all rural residents living below the current poverty line eliminate poverty by 2020. In accordance with the objective, the Luohu district government has helped improve people’s livelihoods in 26 villages which were lifted out of poverty last year in Lufeng, Guangdong province. It will also continue its one-on-one poverty alleviation partnership in Longlin and Xilin counties in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

Luohu will also continue to take part in similar assistance programs involving local governments in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the Tibet autonomous region, Harbin of Heilongjiang province and Jiangxi province.

Specifically speaking, Luohu will build an industrial park in Jieshi that will specialize in ocean engineering. Some big projects totaling an investment of 5.6 billion yuan ($791 million) have been introduced to the new industrial park, whose annual output value is expected to hit nearly 10 billion yuan after they are put into operation.

Thanks to Luohu’s efforts, the poverty ratio in Longlin dropped to 2.02% by the end of last year from 23.57% in 2016. In addition to this, all rural residents in Xilin county were lifted out of poverty by April 2019.

None of the achievements were easy. Last year, the board of the Luohu government convened three meetings, and the relevant bureau chiefs held eight conferences on the subject of poverty alleviation.

In June last year, Luo Yude, secretary of the Luohu District Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), paid inspection tours to Longlin and Xilin. He urged the civil servants taking part in the work to take concrete actions to help resolve practical problems of local people, and show their strong sense of commitment to the work.

Luohu has split up the work to the district, sub-district and residential community departments, and regularly holds joint conferences involving all of the stakeholders so as to adjust their work on the fronts according to the changes of the circumstances.

A total of 40 civil servants from Luohu are stationed in Lufeng, Longlin and Xilin to accurately apply Luohu’s offers with the local residents’ needs. These frontline civil servants play an important role in gaining first-hand experience of local conditions, and guiding local poverty alleviation projects.

For instance, Luohu pays specially attention to improve education, medical care and living conditions of local residents, and creating jobs for them.

Liao Shuxin, a civil servant of Luohu Party school and now secretary of the Xiapu village Party committee in Lufeng, encouraged farmers to establish agricultural cooperatives and develop rural tourism. Liao developed good relations with local farmers, and decided to work in the village for another three years after finishing the first three-year term. “I want to do something here. If I left before the things were finished, I would have felt sorry for the villagers,” Liao said.

Since 2016, the Luohu government has allocated 156 million yuan to 26 villages in Lufeng, and 16 million yuan to the two counties in Guangxi to help improve local people’s livelihoods. The government has also mobilized enterprises, social organizations and individuals to donate for and fund local poverty alleviation projects. As of the end of February, nongovernmental donations from Luohu for the three places hit nearly 70 million yuan.

Luohu’s involvement means win-win cooperation as farmers from Lufeng, Longlin and Xilin can directly sell their local agricultural specialties to Shenzhen through channels provided by retailers and e-commerce platforms in Luohu.

After the outbreak of the COVID-19, despite its own shortage in medical preventative goods, Luohu donated essential medical supplies to the three places, including surgical masks, infrared thermometers and disinfectants, worth over 2.58 million yuan.