Electronics factory, modern agriculture lift Shandong village out of poverty

Sun Liying is resident of Hujia village of Baoshan town in Xihai’an new district, Qingdao city, Shandong province. She starts work at 7:10 a.m. at an electronics factory near her home every day.  

“It only takes me five minutes to walk from my home to the factory that I work at,” the cheerful employee stated with satisfaction. “I am able to go home on my lunch break and make something for my children. It is very convenient.”

Sun used to work 12-hour shifts at a company that was located outside of Hujia and earned 3,000 yuan (US$423) a month. She only has to work eight hours a day at her new job and earns the same amount as she did before. Many of her friends and neighbors have asked her about the factory and shown interest in working there.

Hujia used to be recognized as poverty-stricken at the provincial level. It is located in a hilly area, and its 531 residents mostly engaged in farming for income. A total of 165 households are living in the village, including 10 families that were impoverished until recently and have 15 members in total.

Hujia lacked a pillar industry, and its infrastructure was weak. These kinds of conditions made it difficult for its residents to increase their incomes in a stable manner and improve their lives. Young people tended to seek work elsewhere and often left children and seniors behind.

The local government and Party committee created public welfare positions for impoverished people living in the area in order to help them increase their incomes. Hujia bought commercial assets with poverty alleviation funds, developed photovoltaic power projects, and implemented a transfer system in order to make better use of the land in its borders. The measures resulted in an additional 200,000 yuan (US$28,220) of annual income for its collective and residents, and Hujia began to become more prosperous. None of its residents have lived in poverty since 2016.

“Our top goal is helping people become more prosperous and making sure that residents who have escaped from poverty do not fall back into it,” stated Fei Chao, an official with the Xihai’an New District Federation of Industry and Commerce who was assigned to lead the poverty alleviation endeavor in Hujia village. “Developing industries is the key to helping people live better lives.”

Fei successfully spearheaded the establishment of an electronic device company for poverty alleviation purposes in Hujia after engaging in a lot of research and negotiating with many companies. The factory mostly produces remote controls for Haier, Hisense, and other large enterprises. The work is not difficult to learn, and employees earn good salaries.

“It takes less than a minute to assemble a remote control, so we produce about 4,000 a day,” Sun explained.

Fei mentioned that the factory originally employed nine people, but nearly 100 are currently on the payroll, including 37 Hujia natives who returned to the village in order to take the positions after working as migrant workers in other areas.

The factory’s output value reached nearly 40.5 million yuan (US$5.71 million) in 2019, resulting in 2.6 million yuan (US$366,860) of additional annual income for its employees and the local village collective.

Fei has also initiated three modern agricultural projects that involve efficient crop production to order on about 37 ha of land in the village. These projects are operated under the “enterprises + households + a farming base” model, and have brought in 500,000 yuan (US$70,550) of annual income for growers and the village collective.

Life is getting better in Hujia, and Fei is glad that the village is becoming more prosperous.