Poverty Alleviation and Development in Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps

　　【Overview】 In 2011, Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps earnestly implemented the spirit of the central work conference on Xinjiang's development and, according to the deployments of the party committee of Corps, continued to established a large-scale poverty alleviation pattern and implement the scientific outlook on development. Driven by the pro-poor policies, with joint efforts of the party committees at all levels, poverty alleviation cadres and the masses, Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps made steady progress in the anti-poverty work, the GDP and per capita net income of rural residents in the poor farms witnessed rapid growth, the comprehensive production capacity was further strengthened, the production and living conditions were significantly improved and the Corps made a good start for the anti-poverty work during the “12th Five-Year Plan” period.

　　【Implement the spirit of the central work conference on poverty alleviation and development】 The central work conference on poverty alleviation and development was convened in 2011. Commander of Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Liu Xinqi, the Deputy Commander Kong Xinglong and relevant department leaders attended the meeting. After the conference, Liu Xinqi reported to the Corps’ party committee the spirit of the meeting and put forward the following suggestions for the poverty alleviation and development of Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps: First, we must take poverty alleviation and development as a strategic task and strengthen the leadership to ensure that the poor farms will achieve the goal of building a moderately prosperous society together with the Corps. Second, we should pay more attention to the income growth of the workers in poor farms and the enhancement of the efficiency of the farms to improve the production and living conditions of the masses and improve the living standards of the poor. Third, we should pay more attention to classified guidance based on local conditions. Fourth, we should pay more attention to establishment of a large-scale poverty alleviation pattern. Fifth, we should pay more attention to the overall effectiveness of poverty alleviation work in Xinjiang. Sixth, we should go on to carry forward the spirit of Xinjiang and the spirit of the Corps. At the same time, he proposed measures and suggestions to implement the spirit of the meeting: First, seriously convey, study and implement the spirit of the meeting; Second, establish and improve the poverty alleviation and development organizations; Third, pay close attention to the implementation of the "Outline for Development-oriented Poverty Reduction for China's Rural Areas (2011-2020)"; Fourth, do a good job of policy convergence for poverty alleviation; Fifth, set the targets and guiding ideology of the anti-poverty work for 2012; Sixth, prepare the holding of the party committee’s work conference on poverty alleviation and development.

　　【Poverty line】According to the new national poverty line set by the central work conference on poverty alleviation and development, to achieve the synchronous poverty alleviation and development with the country, explore the establishment of new poverty alleviation mechanism to support the combination of poor farms and impoverished rural households, determine the targets and scale of the poor and make sure to cover all the objects of poverty reduction, based on the national, provincial and farm poverty lines, per capita net income of rural residents and the subsistence allowance standards for various divisions, after careful study and demonstration, the Corps determined the poverty line of 3500 Yuan of per capita net income of rural families, and the number of poverty-stricken people in the Corps was 246,600.

　　【Poverty alleviation and development mechanism】 The Corps continued to improve and innovate the poverty alleviation and development mechanisms, strived to set up a large-scale poverty alleviation pattern integrating special poverty alleviation, industrial poverty alleviation, social poverty alleviation and pairing-off poverty alleviation for Xinjiang, gave full play to the leading role of special poverty alleviation, made good use of the special funds for comprehensive agricultural development, work-relief program, poverty alleviation and development and the program of enrich the people and border areas, and relied on industrial poverty alleviation, ex-situ relocation, intelligent poverty alleviation and construction of livelihood projects to boost the development of poor farms. Meanwhile, it strived to stimulate the initiative of relevant industries, encouraged relevant sectors and departments to participate in and support the poverty alleviation with joint efforts. Taking the improvement of the development environment and conditions of poor farms as the important contents of the development planning, it included the development of poor farms into the performance evaluation of departments, issued preferential policies for poor farms and gave priority to these farms in the allocation of funds and projects to ensure the implementation of the policies and measures. It strived to mobilize more people to get involved in social poverty alleviation participation, continued to strengthen the pairing-off poverty reduction, further clarified the targets, improved the anti-poverty mechanism, innovated the forms for helping the poor, enriched the contents of anti-poverty work and expanded the coverage of poverty reduction. Taking the opportunity of pairing-off poverty alleviation for Xinjiang, based on the planning for providing counterpart support for Xinjiang, it increased efforts on the anti-poverty work, improved the working mechanism and comprehensively promoted the pairing-off poverty alleviation for Xinjiang, covering economic, personnel, technological, education and cultural support, aiming to improve the poverty reduction effects.

　　【Pro-poor measures】 It strived to boost the development of competitive industries in the poor farms through structural adjustment. In 2011, based on the resource advantages, existing basis and development conditions of the poor farms, the Corps vigorously cultivated competitive industries with local characteristics, speeded up the development of farming, fruit, vegetable and gardening industry with local characteristics, set up efficient agricultural demonstration gardens and featured agricultural product bases, and nurtured and introduced agricultural products processing enterprises to extend the industrial chain. At the same time, it did a good job of coordinating the relations between the development of resources and the development of farms and the improvement of livelihoods of the masses to enrich the masses based on rapid development of industries.

　　【Infrastructure construction】 Starting from the construction of urbanization and affordable housing projects, the Corps strived to improve the living conditions of the poor farms, implemented a series of policies on the construction of urbanization and, according to the requirements of boosting urbanization, constantly strengthened the infrastructure construction including the water pipeline, electricity and gas facilities and sewage treatment projects. It implemented affordable housing projects to improve the living conditions and environment of the poverty-stricken masses and workers and promote the construction of low-rent housing, temporary housing and public rental housing, promoted the construction of housing projects for nomads to improve their production and living conditions, vigorously developed cultural, sports and other social undertakings and implemented safety primary and secondary school building projects, medical service facility construction projects for the corps and communities to improve the housing conditions for education and medical service. In 2011, per capita teaching area of the students on the poor farms reached 9 square meters and per capita medical service area reached 0.44 square meters.

　　【Social poverty alleviation】It strengthened the pairing-off poverty reduction on the Corps and advocated the good experience of advanced units in the pairing-off poverty alleviation work such as the Corps’ Court, Organization Department, the Development and Reform Commission, the Finance Bureau, and the Bureau of Water Resources to explore new ways and good methods for pairing-off poverty reduction and further promote the pairing-off poverty reduction work. After the Corps’ organs, institutions and units directly under the Corps, colleges and universities and research institutes were designated to provide counterpart support for 62 poor farms, in 2011, Xinjiang Huashidan Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, Xinjiang Beixin Road & Bridge Construction Co., Ltd, Qingsong Building Materials and Chemicals (Group) Co., Ltd and Xinjiang Yilite Industry Co., Ltd and Shihezi University got involved in the 2011-2012 fixed-point poverty reduction of the fourth round of poverty alleviation and development of Xinjiang, promoting the fixed-point poverty alleviation work in eight villages of five towns.

　　【Pairing-off poverty alleviation for Xinjiang】The Corps seriously implemented the central government’s deployments on the new round of pairing-off poverty alleviation for Xinjiang, used the pairing-off poverty alleviation funds of 521.19 million Yuan to construct 72 aid projects in 38 poor farms to support the construction of housing projects and urban infrastructure, the development of social undertakings and the construction of agricultural structure adjustment and new technology application and increase support for the cultivation of grassroots party organizations and personnel training. 

　　【Poverty alleviation by science and technology】The Corps organized the research institutes, universities and the Divisions’ Institute of Agricultural Science to carry out poverty alleviation by science and technology through sending 231 technology correspondent, 16 expert services groups and 12 divisions to support 62 impoverished farms. According to the national planning for enrich the people with science and technology, the Spark Program, research program, the funding plan for the transformation of agricultural scientific and technological achievements and key technological problem tackling for agricultural development in the Corps, it strived to develop technology professionals for industrial development. Meanwhile, it speeded up the cultivation of management personnel for businesses, professional technical personnel, highly skilled personnel and practical technicians to provide intellectual support for the development of impoverished farms.

　　【Off-site relocation for poverty alleviation】 In border areas, mountain areas and the Beita Mountain Ranch with harsh natural conditions not suitable for production and living, the Corps implemented ex-situ anti-poverty relocation projects and move all or some of the masses out. It relocated 500 households to Zaozi Resettlement Zone of No. 3 Branch of Red Flag Farm, strengthened the infrastructure construction in the resettlement zones, covering farmland, water conservancy, road, electricity and power supply facilities, and improved the production and development conditions and the facilities for housing, education and medical treatment of the workers and masses to ensure “affordable relocation, stable development and future prosperity”. Meanwhile, it expanded the production scale of the workers and masses of Beita Mountain Ranch to provide a fundamental solution to the contradiction between a large population and a small land area and achieve the win-win situation of local development and ex-situ relocation.

　　【Personnel training】To implement the requirements of “three supports and one alleviation” of LGOP on the anti-poverty work, it dispatched 64 university students to work in the impoverished farms, implemented the “Rain Plan • Takeoff Project – Student-aiding Action of Ten Thousand Applied Talents in the Central and Western Regions”, organized trainings for 300 junior and senior middle school graduates from needy families, and organized six leaders of poor farmers to participate in the cadre training course for key counties held by LGOP.

　　【Investment of anti-poverty funds】In 2011, the central government and the Corps invested a total of 261 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds to the impoverished farms. In accordance with the principle of “highlighting the key points, classification implementation and giving consideration to balanced development”, focusing on improving the agricultural production facilities and water conservancy infrastructure, it also paid attention to the development of fruit and vegetable gardening and animal husbandry industry and integrated the funds to construct the Makuiya Trunk Canal of No. 47 Regiment, the Xi’er Trunk Canal of No. 183 Regiment, and the drought resisting motor-pumped wells and Ganmo Highroad Shelterbelt of Xishan Farm to ensure the smooth implementation of major projects and boost the economic and social development of impoverished farms.

　　【Management of anti-poverty funds】In order to standardize the management of anti-poverty funds and give full play to the role of anti-poverty funds, in June, the Corps’ Development and Reform Commission issued the “Notice on Special Inspection of the Anti-poverty Fund Projects on Poor Farms”, and required the divisions to carry out self-examination on the use of 2008-2010 financial anti-poverty funds. From 2008 to 2010, 31 financial anti-poverty fund projects were implemented with a planned total investment of 72.09 million Yuan, of which 59.7 million Yuan was financial anti-poverty funds and 12.39 million Yuan was raised by the farms.

　　【Poverty alleviation publicity】To celebrate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, the Corps carried out relevant activities to publicize its achievements in the field of poverty alleviation and development. It participated in the “Exhibition on China’s Poverty Reduction Achievements in the New Century” held in Beijing by LGOP and won the “Organization Participation Award” issued by the exhibition organizing committee. It held in the Corps authority the exhibition on anti-poverty achievements themed “implementing the spirit of the Corps, keeping in mind the historical mission and strengthening poverty alleviation and development to achieve common prosperity”. Through the exhibition, it comprehensively displayed the course and achievements of the Corps’ poverty alleviation and development in the first decade of the new century, presented the poverty alleviation and development models and mechanism innovation of the Corps, showed the care and support from the state for the development of poor farms and the poverty reduction among our workers and the masses, and displayed the remarkable achievements of the Corps’ party committee in leading poor farms’ cadres and workers to change the backwardness and increase income through unswervingly pushing forward the cause of poverty alleviation and development. Through the exhibition, the Corps intensified the publicity and expanded the social impact, conductive to the creation of a good atmosphere for the whole society to care about, support and get involved in the poverty alleviation and development of the Corps.

　　【Research of poverty alleviation】Through conducting field research in the three prefectures of border farms and south Xinjiang to understand the difficulties for impoverished farms to enhance efficiency and increase income, on the basis of learning from good experience and listening to good advice, the Corps completed the writing of the research report of “Thinking on the Efficiency Enhancement of Poor Farms and the Income Growth of the Workers”. To deal with the ecological, resource, industrial, system and quality factors restricting the efficiency enhancement of poor farms and the income growth of the workers, the Corps put forward the following suggestions. First, pay attention to the construction of scientific and technological projects to boost the development of modern agriculture, enhance agricultural production capacity and increase the benefits of farms and the income of workers. Second, increase efforts on the adjustment of agricultural structure to achieve the conversion and upgrading of the agricultural structure, improve the efficiency of agricultural production and the efficiency of farms and increase the income of the workers. Third, promote the transfer of farms’ surplus labors to the second and tertiary industries relying on the construction of urbanization, new industrialization and agricultural modernization to gradually expand the contracted land area of the workers and increase their income. Fourth, strengthen vocational training, skills training and practical technical trainings to improve the quality of the workers and create conditions for the efficiency enhancement of farms and income growth of the workers. Fifth, improve the interest linkage mechanism and deal with the relationship of the distribution of benefits between leading enterprises and rural households to promote the multi-link income growth of the industry chain.