Zhuhai Urban Construction Group Co Ltd (ZUCG) has been partnered with Wangkeng village in Xinyi, a county-level city in Maoming, to help with the village's poverty alleviation efforts since 2016.

Due to the village's natural conditions, high-quality vegetables and passion fruit plantations have been emphasized as the village's major poverty-alleviation industries by ZUCG. An operational mode integrating enterprises, cooperatives, industrial bases, and farmers has also been created by ZUCG.

"Wangkeng village invested more than 300,000 yuan ($45,353.17) into the passion fruit seedling base, and the cooperative enterprise, Guangxin Ecological Agriculture Co Ltd, gives the impoverished households in the village a guaranteed dividend of 6 percent every year," said Huang Qi, Party secretary of the village.

"Meanwhile, the enterprise gives out free seedlings to impoverished households for planting every year, and will purchase all the ripe fruit," added Huang.

The passion fruit seedling base in Wangkeng village, Maoming. [Photo/mm111.net]

ZUCG invested more than 3.1 million yuan into Changsheng Handicraft Co Ltd, generating 253,100 yuan in dividends in 2019, which benefited 59 impoverished families and 228 impoverished people in the village, with a per capita dividend income of 4,289.23 yuan.

ZUCG and the village also invested in a photovoltaic project, which generated a dividend of 14,100 yuan in 2019 for the village.

As a result, the annual per capita income of impoverished people in the village was 12,477.55 yuan by the end of October of 2020, while that of non-impoverished people was 17,427.68 yuan.

All of the registered impoverished people in the village have been covered by the medical insurance program for urban and rural residents in 2020, while all of the village's 70 poverty-stricken students were exempted from tuition fees and provided with living allowances.

In addition, ZUCG has been improving the living environment in the village, spanning household waste management, toilet renovations, sanitary sewage disposal, as well as construction of roads and street lamps.