Villages visited by Xi shake off poverty

NEW HOME, NEW LIFE

In North China's Shanxi province, Liu Fuyou and his wife moved into a two-bedroom apartment, where they learned to use a flushing toilet, gas stove and kitchen ventilator.

In addition to government allowances, he earns 1,200 yuan a month by cleaning streets, with an annual income several times the amount he used to bring by farming.

"Thanks to improved transport facilities, my daughters who married and moved far from home are finally able to visit us often," he said.

Liu is from Zhaojiawa village deep in the Lyuliang Mountains, one of the most impoverished areas in China where barren land and an isolated environment have hindered development.

"I had to carry farm produce down the mountain on my shoulders to sell it," Liu recalled, adding that meager yields meant he could barely make ends meet.

As part of the country's poverty alleviation relocation project, most Zhaojiawa villagers moved to a residential community in the county seat of Kelan in October 2017, three months after Xi's visit.

Over the past five years, China had relocated 9.6 million impoverished rural residents to more habitable areas, and most were later lifted out of poverty, Tong Zhangshun, an official with the National Development and Reform Commission, said last month at a forum.