A previously impoverished village in Rugao City of east China’s Jiangsu province has carved out a road to prosperity by developing lucrative industries with local characteristics. JSBC has the story.
The villagers in Xingang used to work in the crop fields year after year though they earned very little from farming.
The inaccessibility to transportation is an important factor hindering the village’s development aside from its sole reliance on rice and wheat production.
In 2008, National Highway 204 was opened to traffic. This road passing through the village brought an unexpected turn for the development of Xingang Village. Following the highway to see into the distance, the people of Xingang began to walk out of the croplands to look for a way to get rich. Finally they settled on horticulture by following the success stories of the nearby towns and villages.
In the meantime, the village administration has tried various means to introduce investment projects by providing the fastest land transfer, water and electricity services.
Ming Zhengkui, Deputy General Manager of Rugao Huaxia Flower Co., Ltd.
To be honest, if we invest in other places, it will take half a year, at least a few months, to get the plot of land for development. The villagers of Xingang have a strong sense of industrial development, so it took us no more than ten days to sign the contract on the right to transfer hundreds of mu of land for horticulture development.
At present, the Huaxia Flower Market alone has settled more than 1,000 local horticulture dealers while hiring about 2,800 local farmers.
The rent from the transferred land and the wages from working in the hometown enabled Xingang people to get rid of poverty one year ahead of schedule with the per capita income increasing from less than RMB 2,000 a decade ago to more than RMB 20,000 in 2020. The village’s collective income has increased from 50,000 yuan in 2010 to about 1 million yuan in 2020. By the end of 2019, all the needy people in Xingang had been lifted out of poverty by reporting 7000 yuan in per capita family net income.
Aside from getting rich, the villagers in Xingang are enjoying rich cultural and entertainment activities. Since 2014, Xingang Village has won honorary titles such as Beautiful Countryside Demonstration Village in Jiangsu Province, Beautiful Water Village in Jiangsu Province, and Sanitation Demonstration Village in Jiangsu Province.
She Mingru, A villager from Xingang, Rugao City
I have built a villa, bought an apartment, I can afford to fund my children in college, and I also have a bank deposit. Although living in the countryside, our standard of living is not lower than that in the city. We exercise in the morning and in the evening for longevity. In the past, the village’s elders had an average life expectancy of 60 but now it is more than 70s and will reach 80s in the future.
Chen Zhaofeng, CPC chief, Xingang Village, Rugao City
Thatched houses are turned into tiled houses, and tiled houses are turned into two-storied houses. Every family has tens of thousands of yuan of bank savings and also enjoy pensions, so life is of course happy.
