Full participation reduces poverty in Qingdao’s new area

Located in east China’s Shandong Province, the Qingdao West Coast New Area, established in June 2014 as part of a national-level strategy, is home to a number of major industrial chains. In 2016, with its functional districts flourishing, the area reached a “Shenzhen speed” with its anti-poverty work: All its residents were out of poverty, including 4,278 rural households (7,250 people), 769 urban households (1,271 people), 41 villages, and 5 towns.

Poverty alleviation should not rely on the government alone. With contributions from government departments, first secretaries, enterprises, charities, as well as distinctive local functional districts and the military, the new area gradually established a system for full participation.

The Qingdao West Coast New Area has 10 functional districts, among which 5 carried out targeted assistance to 5 impoverished towns.

Dongjiakou Circular Economic Zone is responsible for Haiqing Town. It invested 60 million yuan (U.S. $9 million) in Haiqing to build the Dongjiakou Haiqing Industrial Park, which covers a construction area of 13,000 square meters. The park is positioned to develop a headquartered economy, to encourage supporting enterprises of Dongjiakou to register in Haiqing.

“To date, we have 10 enterprises registered here, which alone brought our town a tax revenue increase of 12.6 million yuan (U.S. $2 million) in 2016,” said Zhou Ruibin, chairman of the people’s congress in Haiqing.

Military and civilian integration is another feature of the area: The Office of the North Sea Fleet helped Huangling, a provincially registered impoverished village, establish three projects—a poverty alleviation park, a community service center and an infrastructure construction project—while its comprehensive support base assisted two other villages.

First secretaries have also made remarkable achievements: In 2016, 65 appointed first secretaries implemented 389 poverty alleviation projects, totaling 65 million yuan (U.S. $10 million) and resolving for the impoverished a total of 3,520 actual-problem cases.

Moreover, the new area–owned departments provided assistance to 65 key poverty alleviation villages. All cadres at the section level or above helped provide one-on-one support to impoverished households. Last winter, with financial and material aid amounting to 7.5 million yuan (U.S. $1 million), more than 4,500 cadres visited all impoverished households to help make sure they enjoyed a happy Spring Festival. The cadres helped solve more than 5,800 of the households’ problems, all the while establishing a mechanism for regular visiting.