Zhejiang village punches above its financial weight

A small village once saddled with 1.5 million yuan ($236,900) in debt has attracted investment capital of 330 million yuan over the past seven years.

Zhu Renbin, Party secretary of Lujia, Zhejiang province, is the chief architect of the village's head-turning fundraising success.

In 2011, most dwellings in Lujia were still built of mud and brick, and villagers had to get around on bumpy dirt roads. Pit latrines and trash heaps turned the 16.7-square-kilometer village into an unsightly junkyard at the time.

"In the first year of my tenure in 2011, Lujia was criticized for having the worst sanitary conditions among 187 villages in Anji county," Zhu said.

"I felt embarrassed, but also obligated to change the village for the better."

Under such conditions, the first thing to do was to reconstruct the infrastructure, which would lay the foundation for other work and also meant an improvement in the villagers' living conditions, he said.

However, real money was needed, and Lujia didn't have it.

The village had to invest 10 million yuan if it wanted to make a difference. But there was only 6,000 yuan in its coffers, as well as the outstanding debt of 1.5 million yuan.

Zhu then came up with the idea of inviting bids, but nobody took the bait as they were afraid of not getting their money back from the underperforming village after the proposed projects were completed.

To solve the capital shortfall, Zhu－a former businessman who previously made an annual profit of about 1 million yuan from a cement factory－was able to front 500,000 yuan as an initial investment. With his money as a guarantee, contractors finally began pouring in.

The local government then started beautifying the village by cleaning the streets, removing waste and trash, planting more greenery and renovating homes.

There are a few places in Zhejiang with beautiful scenery, but Lujia is relatively ordinary by comparison. With no celebrities, ancient history or major industries, it's much harder for village residents to strike it rich via tourism.

"So we decided to hire professional tourism agencies and establish companies to operate in Lujia. The village accounted for 49 percent of the shares, while tourism companies took up 51 percent," he said.

The tourism companies and village committee jointly invested in the construction of infrastructure, and they implemented unified planning to develop 18 distinct family farms themed around tea, fruits and vegetables, herbs and other categories.

"Most of the young people have already left for big cities to find better jobs, leaving the old and the frail stuck back on the farms. Now, with over 1,000 jobs created by family farms, and with the potential to start up their own businesses, many young people are coming back," he said.

The average annual income of farmers increased from 14,700 yuan in 2011 to 35,600 yuan last year, according to Zhu.

"I have always felt that the ultimate goal of building a beautiful village is to make the farmers richer, and more important, to make them laugh," he added. "Helping the villagers is the driving force for me to keep working."