Qingdao – Guizhou Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation

　　【Overview】In 2011, the Qingdao municipal government seriously implemented the deployments of the central work conference on poverty alleviation and development, constantly improved the counterpart support system focusing on government assistance, project implementation, enterprise participation, social assistance, personnel exchanges and training work, and successfully completed the pairing-off poverty alleviation work. After the central work conference on poverty alleviation and development, Qingdao Municipal Party Committee immediately convened the executive meeting and listened to the work reports of relevant parties on the pairing-off poverty reduction. Member of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee and the City Party Secretary Li Qun made deployments for the anti-poverty work in the future. In 2011, Qingdao arranged financial relief fund of 16.4 million Yuan, of which 14 million Yuan was from the city government and 2.4 million Yuan was from district government. Based on the actual needs of the natural disaster relief and pairing-off poverty alleviation work in Guizhou Province, Qingdao increased municipal financial relief funds by 13 million Yuan and district-level relief funds of 1.85 million Yuan. In 2011, a total of 31.25 million Yuan was allocated to support the villages involved in the development-oriented poverty alleviation in Anshun City and Tongren City and the development of industries and infrastructure of poor villages. The implementation of the projects effectively improved the production and living conditions of the local masses. Particularly the development of a number of industries with local characteristics stimulated the potential of the masses for becoming rich and significant effects were achieved in the twinning poverty reduction. Haier Co., Ltd., Hisense Electric Co., Ltd., Guizhou Red Star Development Co., Ltd and one comrade of Qingdao Domestic Dconomic Cooperation were respectively titled as advanced collectives and advanced individual for national poverty alleviation and development.

　　【Entire village advancement】 In 2011, Qingdao City continued to construct villages for development-oriented poverty alleviation in Anshun and Tongren and completed the construction of 24 villages involved in the development-oriented poverty alleviation. The projects were mainly road building, improvement of villages’ appearance, drinking water project, development of pig, cattle, sheep breeding, development of fruit, forest, vegetable industry, etc. Based on the different industrial characteristics of local areas, under the principle of “one product for one village”, it set up specialized villages respectively engaged in vegetable planting, fruit tree planting, village tourism, etc, laying an industrial basis for long-term development. In the implementation of entire village advancement projects, it successively promoted the improvement of livestock and the planting of cash crops based on new species in Anshun City, set up the tea base project and planting and breeding demonstration bases in Tongren to broaden the sources of income of local farmers. Meanwhile, it launched 33 featured competitive industrial products and infrastructure construction projects with market potential that can enrich the people. Through one-year project construction, the agricultural production conditions and infrastructure of the project villages were significantly improved, promoting the economic development and income growth of the masses of local areas. In 2011, Guizhou suffered from a devastating drought. Qingdao City timely adjusted the project plan developed at the beginning of that year, invested some financial anti-poverty funds to help local area do practical things and solve difficulties and support Anshun and Tongren to conduct disaster relief and post-disaster reconstruction work. It implemented infrastructure construction projects including drinking water projects and water conservancy construction in more than 60 towns and villages of 12 counties to enhance the ability of local areas to withstand drought.

　　【Economic and trade cooperation】Based on the advantage of the economic development and the industrial characteristics of Guizhou, in accordance with the principle of “cooperation for win-win situation”, Qingdao City implemented the strategy of development by economic cooperation, guided and supported the competitive enterprises in the city to conduct industrial, economic and trade cooperation with Guizhou. In August 2011, Deputy Party Secretary of Qingdao Municipal Committee and Mayor Xia Geng headed a delegation to participate in the “2011 China (Guizhou) International Alcoholic Beverage Expo and China • Guiyang Investment and Trade Fair” in Guizhou. In order to promote the multi-level cooperation between the two sides, Qingdao municipal government and Guizhou provincial government signed the “Framework Agreement on the Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation in the ‘12th Five-Year Plan’ Period” and clarified the main contents of the cooperation. The Qingdao delegation carried out field research on the aid projects in Anhui and Tongren, signed two investment projects with a total investment of 1.15 billion Yuan, including the barium salt new materials project worth 550 million Yuan of Guizhou Red Star Development Co., Ltd and the lithium-ion battery materials manganese products project worth 600 million Yuan of Guizhou, Red Star Development Dalong Manganese Co., Ltd. In 2011, Qingdao assisted Guizhou Province to hold in Qingdao the “Symposium for Qingdao’s Private Enterprises to Boost the Development of Guizhou and the Conference on Promotion of Investment Invitation”, the “Anshun City Investment and Trade Promotion Fair”, etc. More than 400 people from relevant departments and enterprises attended the events and came to agreement on the cooperation in a number of projects, further promoting the convergence of the industries and the economic and trade cooperation of the two regions.

　　【Poverty relief cadre training】 In order to improve the overall quality of the twinned regions, in 2011, Guizhou sent 13 cadres to work in Qingdao. The training on modern agriculture with characteristics of Guizhou was held in Qingdao, and a total of 98 people from the poverty alleviation departments of Anshun and Tongren attended the training. Experts were invited to deliver lectures and trainees were organized to visit the new rural areas, new communities and competitive enterprises of Qingdao. As a result, the cadres receiving the training had a better understanding of the basic experience of the economic development and the situation of new rural construction in the eastern regions.

　　【Social Poverty Alleviation】 All circles of society in Qingdao City actively got involved in the warmth delivery activity for poverty reduction. 12 districts and cities of Qingdao were designated to provide twinning support for 12 impoverished counties of Anshun and Tongren and actively participated in the construction of villages for development-oriented poverty alleviation. The party committees and main leaders of Shinan District and Laoshan District of Qingdao City went to the twinned counties to talk about the pairing-off poverty reduction work. Some districts and cities increased efforts on counterpart support based on the actual situation and increased relief funds. Shinan District of Qingdao City increased the financial relief funds by 1.2 million Yuan to support Pingba County of Guizhou Province; Chengyang District of Qingdao City actively mobilized communities, banks and enterprises to increase financial support for Guangling County of Guizhou Province and total of 120,000 Yuan was donated to accelerate the construction of the “development-oriented poverty reduction villages”. Based on the actual situation of drought resisting activity of Guizhou Province, Laoshan District of Qingdao City organized local major projects and enterprises to donate 530,000 Yuan for the drinking water projects of Puding County, Guizhou Province. Laoshan District Development and Reform Bureau and Laoshan District Red Cross carried out field research on the poor and the poverty alleviation work in a dozen of poor villages of Puding County and, based on the actual situation of the poor villages and people in Puding County, organized two enterprises to donate 30 computers worth 100,000 Yuan to local schools and set up computer centers. The two enterprises determined to subsidize 20 primary and secondary school students for tuition fees till their university graduation.