Interest-free loans deliver village from hardship

At the end of January, Meng Yanzhou and his daughter were busy dealing with a large number of packages at his express delivery company in Mengji village, Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

As Spring Festival approached, his company was handling deliveries of dried fruit, garments and other online purchases.

"Nearly 800 parcels were sorted and dispatched every day in Mengji village last year, twice the number in 2019," Meng, 68, said. "Recently most of them were ordered by villagers to prepare for Spring Festival."

The village, home to 1,089 people, is located in Xiji county in the south of Ningxia. It was the final county in the region to be lifted out of poverty last year.

"I can tell from the volume of packages that villagers have really got rid of poverty," Meng said. "People are getting rich and starting to shop online."

Parcels sent from Yinchuan, the regional capital, that arrive in the morning are delivered to villagers by nightfall.

"The high efficiency of the express delivery service in Mengji encourages online shopping, saving villagers money," Meng said.

He founded the express delivery company in 2014 with a 50,000 yuan ($7,740) interest-free loan guaranteed by the rural credit cooperative.

"Back in 2005, I could hardly borrow 1,000 yuan to start a small business," he said. "But it was easier to get a loan and business license in 2014 after the region rolled out poverty alleviation measures."

In its first few years, Meng's company had five employees but they only dealt with a few packages a day. It now has eight, including a cook, and it made a profit of 200,000 yuan last year.

"Our business grew bigger last year amid the COVID-19 epidemic, and we benefited a lot from the country's policy of tax exemptions for delivery services," Meng said.

His daughter has now taken over most of the business operations while he looks after his mother.

To celebrate the coming Spring Festival, Meng and his family have bought fruit from southern China such as pitaya and kiwi fruit through an e-commerce platform for the first time.

The rural credit cooperative has not only supported small businesses in the village like Meng's express delivery company by offering interest-free loans, but has also helped villagers develop livestock breeding to lift Mengji out of poverty.

The village's income mainly comes from raising cattle, black goats and chicken, its Party chief, Meng Ruyong, said.

A cattle breeding farm was established with a 500,000 yuan loan in 2014 to encourage villagers to join the breeding industry. It now has 100 cattle and provides jobs for a dozen villagers who are paid an average of 24,000 yuan a year, Meng Ruyong said.

The average annual income in Mengji reached 10,730 yuan last year－up from 6,830 in 2016－lifting the villagers out of poverty.

Villager Meng Debiao, who raises livestock including goats and cattle, also received an interest-free loan from the rural credit cooperative to expand his business.

He remembers the hard times when he had to eat potatoes three times a day.

"The village is deep in the mountains and had no access to good roads or electricity," he said. "We used to plant potatoes in the mountain soil, nearly 1 kilometer from home, but the rough mountain road made the trip really difficult."

He borrowed 50,000 yuan from the cooperative in 2014 to invest in raising black goats, which could be sold at a higher price and were popular in the market.

"I was cautious about such a large loan at that time for fear of failing to meet the repayments, but our Party chief persuaded me to dream bigger," Meng Debiao said.

His herd of black goats has expanded from 20 to 100 and he later began breeding cattle too. The business made a profit of 100,000 yuan last year.

In 2017, Meng Debiao left the cave dwelling he had lived in since he married in 1989 and moved into a tile-roofed house with the money earned from raising livestock. The cave is now used to store forage.

Nearly every household in Mengji now has a cow, and 52 of the 318 households in the village are raising more than five cattle, Meng Ruyong said.

"I hope the interest-free loans can be extended for a few more years so villagers can expand their livestock herds," he said. "By the end of this year, the average per capita income is expected to reach 11,000 yuan."