East China’s Jiangsu province has stepped up its efforts for rural road construction in recent years by echoing President Xi Jinping’s instructions on improving policies to construct, maintain, protect and manage rural roads well to speed up rural modernization.
As of the end of 2017, the total mileage of rural roads in the province exceeded 140,000 km, of which the total number of bridges reached 59,000, ranking first in the country.
Xu You'e, 60, is a villager of Lingshu Village, Haimen Port New District, Haimen County. Last year, the couple planted grapes, raised poultry in their leisure time, and did odd jobs at local enterprises, which earned them a net annual income of nearly 100,000 yuan. She could never have earned so much money before the rural highway in front of her home was built.
Lingshu village is located in a remote area. In the past, the poor road conditions made it inconvenient for the villagers to travel. The poor village known near and afar was also no attraction to enterprises at all. In the worst scenarios, the village was in debt to the extent of 1.02 million yuan.
The opening of a rural road and a rural highway integrated the village into the urban road network, making it an appealing destination to corporate investment.
The village raced against time to construct a centralized industrial zone that could accommodate more than 300 enterprises for the attraction of large enterprises and foreign-funded enterprises.
The village was also assisted by the local government departments to build a rural highway that is 3400 meters long and 14 meters wide to make it a east-westward trunk road for the villagers.
Xu You’e seized the opportunity to expand its own vineyard to five acres of land. Relying on its location of being within easy access to the highway, her family's vineyard received endless visitors in the harvest season with the grapes sold out in the greenhouses.
In addition to self-employment such as the effort made by Xu You’e, other villagers in Lingshu Village contracted their land to foreign companies to earn the rent and the income by working for the companies.
At present, more than 1,300 households of the village registered more than 10 million yuan of deposit in total. As a result, Lingshu Village has turned itself into a "national civilized village" from an underdeveloped village.
Liyang City, located in the hilly mountainous areas, has combined upgrading of rural roads with the rural revitalization and rural tourism to create the province's first rural road for global tourism.
The 300-km road looks like a "gold ribbon", interweaving the tourist attractions and the distinctive villages along the road to attract thousands of tourists on weekend or holidays.
Rural roads have become a new carrier for farmers’ employment, prosperity and startups in the campaign of “good construction, maintenance, protection and management of rural roads”. In recent years, Jiangsu has made tangible achievements in the construction of rural roads to have brought popularity and wealth to the rural areas.
In 2017, Jiangsu built a total of 4309 km of rural roads and 1094 bridges, fulfilling the annual goals and tasks, enabling it to become one of the demonstration provinces for rural highway construction.
