Bus takes slow road to spread cash issues

For five years, a vehicle has traveled around China to spread the word to rural students about personal finances and money matters.

During that period, over 10,000 young Chinese have boarded the financial literacy traveling bus and learned about money matters through fun activities.

This year, the bus, sponsored by Visa Inc, will retrace the old Tea Horse Road, an ancient trade route used to transport the aromatic beverage and dating back thousands of years.

Through its efforts, the global card payment services company aims to raise levels of financial knowledge among children in southwestern China.

Starting in May and continuing in June, the bus embarked on travels to five western Chinese cities including Chengdu and Xichang in Sichuan province, and Kunming, Dali, and Cangyuan in Yunnan province.

Chen Jiaping, a 10-year-old primary school student from Dali, Yunnan province, attended the event in May. She said she enjoyed the activities and learned a lot about financial management.

"I got to know about the currencies from different countries, and I also learned how to use debit cards and credit cards, and what I should do if I lost my card," she said.

"As a result, I will save my lucky money and plan to spend it properly, so that I can buy things that I like in the future."

Hope Ewing, head of financial literacy at Visa Asia Pacific, said the ancient Tea Horse Road is not only rich in history and ethnic culture, it also occupies an important place in China's economic development.

"Through education-based poverty alleviation, we will raise the awareness of financial knowledge and boost local economic development in the region," she said.

"With years of experience in financial literacy under our belt, we are very honored to share our observations and experience in educating young people," she said.

The company said in the future it will strengthen cooperation with educators and policymakers to raise awareness of the subject, and to promote exchange programs for Chinese financial literacy workers to improve their knowledge and the development of financial literacy education in China.

Meanwhile, Visa said it will build and launch the first Chinese website with a financial literacy theme, in an effort to meet the financial literacy education needs of young people, educators and parents.

Contact the writer at zhuwenqian@chinadaily.com.cn