How little Chinese town transformed overnight

Our correspondent was in China recently and visited Bijie, a town witnessed rapid changes in the living conditions of the people over the last three years and reports on how the transformation happened within such a short period. A well-paved road leads to Bijie, a town tucked into the mountainous Wumeng part of Dafang County, […]

Our correspondent was in China recently and visited Bijie, a town witnessed rapid changes in the living conditions of the people over the last three years and reports on how the transformation happened within such a short period.

A well-paved road leads to Bijie, a town tucked into the mountainous Wumeng part of Dafang County, about 190 kilometres from Guiyang, capital of Guizhou Province. It was once the symbol of poverty in China, but in the last three years, it has undergone stunning transformations that has changed its reputation and the lives of its people.

In that period, slums and shanty neighbourhoods have given way to modern duplexes and terraced apartments. The traditional farming community has seen an influx of modern household equipments that have changed lives and boosted work opportunities. Neighbourhoods are also fitted with hospitals, schools and playgrounds.

Zheng Ying Zhang, 84, witnessed the transformation of her hometown and her own apartment, which she now shares with her grandson.

“You can look around the house and see that I have items I never had before. There is washing machine, cookers, television set and furniture,” she said proudly.

But how did this change come to Bijie?

Private company to the rescue

The transformation of Bijie from a former poverty-stricken backwater town to a modern architectural beauty began when the government signed an agreement with real estate giant, Evergrande Group on December 1, 2015.

Evergrande Group’s project, which was funded by ¥11 billion, (about N558 billion) investment  out of which ¥7 billion (about N355 billion), is in place, is targeted at 9,275,200 residents in seven counties and three districts of Guizhou Province.

Before the programme, Bijie had a population of 1,154,500 impoverished persons, whose living conditions have largely been improved.

The company has successfully relocated about 585, 900 poor residents to 17 resettlement communities in Dafang and Qianxi Counties, with additional 444, 100 set to be relocated in 2020.

Evergrande Group, China’s second largest real estate company, started in 1996 under the name Hengda Group. Since 2017, the company experienced a surge in its stocks, shares and revenue in other investments.

Productive resettlement

Apart from the relocations to better-planned neighbourhoods, the group set up productive activities such as farming, craft and local industries in each of the settlements.

To coordinate these activities in Dafang County, the company recruited a poverty alleviation team made up of 2,108 members comprising bachelor’s degree holders, 321 elite cadres, and 287 team members. One of the task they set for themselves is improving the agricultural yield of the populace.

Lu Ye, who is a member of the team, said each farm has about 28,000 square meters where plants like strawberries, peppers, cucumber, tomatoes, pumpkins are cultivated.

According to Xiao Yi, a Big Data analyst with Evergrande, this staff are designated to assist every county, town and village dwellers involved in tailored activities like fruit and vegetables production and cattle breeding. The company has built 60, 980 vegetable greenhouses and imported or bred close to 100, 000 Angus and Simmental cows and helped in planting thousands of economic fruit trees and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) bases.

The projects integrate the value chains in cattle production with grass planting, valued at ¥90m, and slaughterhouse, processing, logistics and sales.

He said the overall aim is that the households have continued increase in income from sale of the products in big cities adding that many earn ¥3, 000, about N165, 000, a month. However, the managers of the resettlement farms remit ¥20m, (about N110m) annually which is used for new settlements.

For those not absorbed in the farms, according to Zheng Xiaobiao, assistant manager of the company, the company organizes vocational training programmes and creates jobs.

“So long as one family member gets employed, the whole family can get rid of poverty,” she said.

The company, she said, sees the work as part of its corporate social responsibility.

For a country that cut the number of people living in impoverished rural areas in 1978 from 770 million to 16.6 million in 2018, with poverty rate crashing from 97.5 percent in 1978 to 1.7 percent currently, China’s model appears to be working. With a population of 1.4 billion people, China has an unemployment rate of just 3.6 percent and a GDP of over $14 trillion.

Partnerships like this between the government and private companies have seen between 12.3 percent and 16.5 percent of the population lifted out of poverty between 2013 and 2018.

Rapid economic growth

Xinye Zheng, Professor and Dean at Renmin University, Beijing, identified massive acquisition of capital, skilled labour and technology as major factors in the country’s rapid economic growth in the past three decades making it the second largest economy in the world behind the USA.

Xinye, who admitted that China is still a developing country, gave kudos to the concerted focus on the rural poor, which is helping to address the problems of lack of education, poverty, inequality and pollution.

“One of the ways [of] addressing that is by getting many rural women to work in factories and subsidizing their salaries. That way, we empower them to help their families,” he said.

“It will be an era of securing a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and of moving on to all-out efforts to build a great modern country,” he added.

For beneficiaries like Zheng Ying Zhang, the model has changed her life and that of her family. She is now proud of the life she lives and she will continue to open her door to visitors, even foreigners, with a smile on her face.