Shanxi lifts villagers out of poverty through poverty relief efforts

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Combination photo shows a view of Xigou Village, Pingshun County, north China's Shanxi Province in 1959 (top, file photo); and the same village on June 29, 2020 (bottom, photo taken by Cao Yang). Xigou was a poor village lying deep in the Taihang Mountains. In recent years, the village has witnessed its economy greatly improved after advanced farming technologies and tourism industries were introduced. The recent poverty relief efforts by Shanxi Province include: make road networks access to rural villages, relocate rural residents to better housing, afforest barren lands with green trees, and stimulate employment by developing tourism. Without these, the province's many plateau and mountain villages would have remained impoverished due to lack of decent roads and arable lands, plus the ensuing loss of labour force and industrial diversity. By February 2020, a total of 7,993 villages in all of the 58 impoverished counties in Shanxi have shaken off poverty, with the incidence of poverty dropping to less than 0.1 percent. (Xinhua)