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China

Across China: Village collectives help farmers dispel livelihood worries

2022-04-07 14:51:20

TAIYUAN, April 6 (Xinhua) -- Yang Xiquan, a farmer in Longmen Village, Hejin City of north China's Shanxi Province, has just received the last 90,000 yuan (about 14,140 U.S. dollars) of his medical expense reimbursement from the village committee.

Two years ago, Yang's father was hospitalized for lung cancer, bringing a huge amount of medical expenditure for the family. Yang could hardly imagine what would have happened without the help from the local committee and relevant national policies.

"The daily cost could exceed several thousand yuan at the most, far from what a farmer could afford. All I could do was borrow money from others," Yang recalled.

Officials in Longmen Village introduced the village's collective reimbursement system to the worried man after hearing about his plight.

"As long as you are our villager, you can present your expense invoices to the village. Apart from the expenses covered by the national new rural cooperative medical scheme, your remaining expenditure on medical treatment can be reimbursed by the village collective," said Yuan Juanzhen, the village's deputy Party secretary.

Yang received a total medical reimbursement of more than 400,000 yuan thanks to the favorable policies and help from the village collective. The only expenses he had to cover himself were the travel and accommodation fees during his trips to the hospital.

The local village collective not only prioritizes attention to financial burdens brought by diseases but also other livelihood needs including education and pension.

Yuan said that students hailing from the village will get at least 3,000 yuan in scholarship funds if admitted to a university, and the village has funded over 40 million yuan for education over the past two decades. Meanwhile, seniors aged 60 and above can receive pension subsidies ranging from 500 yuan to 650 yuan per month.

All such policies and relevant subsidies stem from the burgeoning collective economy of Longmen. Since 1996, it has blazed a trail of eco-friendly and integrative industrial development based on multiple pillar industries including coking, construction materials, fine chemicals and tourism.

By the end of 2021, the village's fixed assets surpassed 3.2 billion yuan, offering job opportunities to more than 1,600 local villagers, and the per capita net income of its residents reached 37,000 yuan.

On Jan. 10, Wang Jiechen and his family received last year's dividend of 51,000 yuan from the village collective. "This year marks the 26th year of handing out dividends to the locals," said Wang.

To achieve rural revitalization, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has proposed that relevant departments should study and formulate preferential tax policies to support the development of village-level collective economy and strive to support the development of about 100,000 villages by 2022.

Local governments are also expected to plan industrial development for villages and diversify the development paths of village-level collectives.

Yuncheng City of Shanxi Province has announced that the city aims to see the annual income of all its administrative villages reach more than 100,000 yuan within five years, and half of the villages will even notch up an annual income of over 300,000 yuan.

"Developing and expanding the village-level collective economy can help villagers alleviate their livelihood worries in terms of medical care, education and elderly care, while synergizing efforts to improve work efficiency and fuel rural revitalization," said Zhu Qizhen, a professor at China Agricultural University.

"It is also an important way to lead the villagers to achieve common prosperity," Zhu added.

Editor:Jiang Yiwei