34 BEIJING REVIEW FEBRUARY 13, 2020 http://www.bjreview.com
OUT OF POVERTY
T
he village of Nanyu in Baoding City,
Hebei Province in north China is only
two hours’ drive from capital Beijing.
Yet in 2015, the distance seemed to be over-
whelming, especially in terms of income.
The average annual income of the villag-
ers was about 2,000 yuan ($285) that year.
Nearly 26 percent of the families were im-
poverished and more than 100 people lived
below the national poverty line. In sharp con-
trast, the per-capita annual income for rural
residents in China was 10,772 yuan ($1,536)
in the same year.
But by 2018, the village had undergone
a transformation with its average income
jumping to 7,000 yuan ($997). The change is
primarily due to one industry that has cashed
in on the beautiful natural scenery of the vil-
lage and its proximity to Beijing: homestays.
The Republic of Korea (ROK)’s electronic
giant Samsung assisted the village as part
of its corporate social responsibility (CSR)
in China and invested 15 million yuan ($2
million) to build high-end homestays. These
are run by the village cooperative. Villagers
buy shares in the cooperative at the begin-
ning of a year and get a bonus by the year-
end. The payment is doubled for those who
are impoverished. They can also work at the
homestays to make more money.
In 2018, the industry brought in a rev-
enue of 2.85 million yuan ($406,000) and
promoted other related industries.
Samsung has since replicated the model
in 12 more villages. It has also organized a
trip of the village heads to the ROK to learn
industrial development strategies in rural
areas and how to conduct e-commerce.
Samsung is one of the many foreign
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poverty in China. According to Chen Deming,
Chairman of the China Association of
Enterprises With Foreign Investment (CAEFI),
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proving people’s livelihood. The association
guides its member companies to different
provinces to help develop education, health-
care and other industries. Since 2014, it hasalso been publicizing outstanding CSR prac-
tices by foreign companies in China.Bridging the tech gap
In Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
in north China and Heilongjiang and Jilin
provinces in the northeast, U.S. financial
services company VISA and the China
Foundation for Development of Financial
Education, an NGO founded to tackle
poverty through financial education, are
undertaking a pilot project to provide
inclusive finance and financial education
in 33 impoverished counties. The project
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teaching them how to prevent risk and use
digital finance. Thanks to the knowledge,
more and more residents are now using
online payment systems.
Zhu Fengrui, a loan officer at a bank in
Inner Mongolia providing small loans to local
herdsmen, is a witness to the change. In the
past, less than 20 percent of his customers
paid back their loans electronically. Today
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“I used to travel nearly 100 km a day to
collect money from my customers. Now it
has become much easier with online pay-
ment,” Zhu said with satisfaction.
Since 1996 American consumer goods
corporation Procter & Gamble (P&G) has
been helping Project Hope, a charity project,
with money and materials to the tune of
over 100 million yuan ($14 million) to im-
prove education in impoverished areas and
promote youth development.
There are now over 200 P&G-funded
primary schools across the country, where
more than 300,000 rural children have been
able to access better education facilities.
“As the hardware of Project Hope prima-
ry schools has been improved considerably,
what do the children need most now? We
found that children in impoverished areas
have a strong demand for cultural products,”
Qiu Zhongqiang, vice president of the com-
pany, said at a forum in Beijing in December.
“Therefore, we have come to a new stage to
enrich their cultural lives.”
P&G is working with the China YouthGiving a Helping Hand
Foreign companies get involved in the fight against poverty By Ji Jing
Residents of Nanyu Village in Baoding City, Hebei Province, share their poverty-alleviation experience with
representatives from other villages and other guests on January 17, 2019
CO
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