By Deng Jiansheng, Xian Gan
Southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, the only provincial-level region among China’s 14 national contiguous impoverished regions suffering from extreme poverty, has taken greats efforts to help farmers and herdsmen out of poverty.
With flocks of sheep and cattle as well as golden highland barley, Tibet is especially lovely during autumn and winter. Right after reaping highland barley, 45-year-old Chodron in Dagze District, Lhasa, capital of Tibet, hurried to a farmers and herdsmen cooperative that produces and sells handmade traditional handicrafts.
Chodron is a seamstress at the cooperative. Recently, she and her workmates have been working overtime as the cooperative received a great number of orders for school uniforms. In the past, she became idle after the harvest time.
Established in 2012, the cooperative has provided jobs for 27 farmers and herdsmen like Chodron and brings them a monthly income between 2,800 yuan (about $394.49) and 6,000 yuan.
“In the recent three years, we have developed suitable poverty alleviation industries to help farmers and herdsmen increase their income,” said Zhang Gan, secretary of the Communist Party of China Dagze District committee.
Zhang added that in the first half of this year, the per capita disposable income of rural residents in Dagze District reached 4,623 yuan, more than 75 percent of which was generated by industries and paid by employers, representing a significant increase from the past.
Five years ago, policy-generated income accounted for about 40 percent of the per capita disposable income of rural residents in the district.
In the first half of 2019, the per capita disposable income of rural residents in Tibet was 4,009 yuan, up 12.5 percent year on year, which represented the greatest growth rate of per capita disposable income among provincial-level areas in the whole country. In particular, the per capita income from wages and salaries of rural residents grew by 47.3 percent.
While developing industries with local characteristics such as yak, highland barley, mineral water and handicrafts with ethnic minority characteristics, Tibet has managed to train farmers and herdsmen and create jobs for them.
The region has properly integrated the development of industries and local employment, helping farmers and herdsmen find jobs in areas closer to home and enabling them to fully share development dividends.
According to credible source, various infrastructure construction projects in Tibet in the first half of this year had created jobs for 193,000 farmers and herdsmen, thus significantly increasing rural residents’ income.
Currently, poverty headcount ratio in Tibet has dropped to less than 6 percent. In this year, the region aims to increase the disposable income of rural residents by more than 13 percent, and lift all the 150,000 people living in poverty and all the 19 impoverished counties out of poverty.
