To achieve Chinese-style modernization, we must accelerate the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas. In Minxian County, Gansu Province, seemingly ordinary cat's tail grass can sell for tens of yuan per kilogram, truly becoming a "golden grass" for local farmers to increase their income and become wealthy; in Yunyang County, Chongqing, late-maturing navel oranges hanging from the branches are entering the harvest season, and villager Xiao Yezi confidently stands in front of the live broadcast camera to promote these local specialties.
Minxian and Yunyang, though hundreds of kilometers apart, share a similar past: both were national-level poverty-stricken counties. Today, this "past" has been replaced by "Hometown of Cat's Tail Grass in China" and "Top 100 Counties in Western China." The Export-Import Bank of China has not only witnessed the tremendous changes in the two counties but has also been a powerful driving force behind these transformations.
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the Export-Import Bank of China thoroughly implemented the decisions and plans of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on targeted poverty alleviation, learned from and applied the experience of the "Ten Thousand Villages Project," and continuously innovated its assistance measures. Through a combination of industrial development and talent support, it helped Minxian and Yunyang counties, which were targeted for poverty alleviation, to consolidate and expand their achievements in poverty alleviation and achieve comprehensive rural revitalization.
Supporting the "Dream of Prosperity" through Specialized Industries
On Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce platform, cat's tail grass from Minxian County has been selected for shopping carts by customers in the United States and Australia. Shui Zhonghong, a villager from Minxian County, said, "The income from growing cat's tail grass is more than working in the city."
After undergoing a series of meticulous processing steps, fresh cat's tail grass is transformed into bundles of long-fiber fodder ideal for racehorses, dairy cows, and herbivorous pets. Behind this transformation is the strong support of the Export-Import Bank of China: a 6,000-square-meter high-standard cat's tail grass drying yard and a 1,000-square-meter standardized factory building donated by the bank, providing crucial support for industrial upgrading.
From basic guarantees to integrated innovation, the Export-Import Bank of China has built a distinctive industrial organization model of "leading enterprises driving bases, and bases connecting farmers," guiding enterprises to cooperate with cooperatives. Relying on "assistance workshops," "rural employment factories," and production technology guidance, it absorbs more farmers and gradually realizes an integrated operation model encompassing planting, processing, sales, and farmer profit sharing. This helps more villagers secure stable employment near their homes, leading to increased income and prosperity. "We've learned scientific pest and disease control techniques and multi-crop harvesting at different times, which has greatly improved the quality and increased the yield of cat's tail grass. Our pockets are soon bulging," said Wang Caizhong, Party Secretary of Lilin Village, Minxian County, happily.
How far can a small cat's tail grass "go"? Many villagers used to answer Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong, but the Export-Import Bank of China's answer is "the world." To achieve this goal, the Export-Import Bank of China partnered with professional cross-border e-commerce platforms to collaborate on a "training + incubation + agency operation" model. A new cross-border e-commerce incubation center was established in Minxian County, and a cross-border e-commerce operation center was set up in Hangzhou. This provides Minxian enterprises and agricultural businesses with comprehensive guidance on opening and maintaining cross-border stores, building and managing independent websites, registering overseas trademarks, and operating brands, as well as "one-stop" services for customs, taxation, foreign exchange, and logistics. To date, with the support of the Export-Import Bank of China, 7 cross-border stores and 2 overseas trademarks have been registered, and the export volume of specialty products has exceeded 20 million yuan.
Today, this small cat's tail grass is no longer just a "wealth-generating grass" that symbolizes family happiness, but has become a window for villagers to step out of the mountains and connect with the world.
Passing on the torch to cultivate a "forest of timber"
Many primary schools in the mountainous areas of Yunyang County have faced the problem of high turnover of excellent teachers, which has affected the quality of teaching. To solve this problem, the Export-Import Bank of China actively took on the responsibility of educational assistance and, in conjunction with the Chongqing Municipal Working Committee for the Care of the Next Generation (hereinafter referred to as "the Working Committee"), organized and implemented the "Retired Principals Going to the Countryside" project in Jiangkou and Fengming Primary Schools. This project paired experts from the city with school teachers to provide mentorship and guidance, and carried out "targeted treatment" on curriculum design and other aspects, transforming donated funds into "intellectual leverage" to help achieve balanced and high-quality development of rural basic education.
During the project's implementation, the Export-Import Bank of China actively connected with local working committees for the care of the next generation and county education commissions. From the perspective of teaching content, they helped pilot schools develop new courses, create efficient classrooms, and improve teaching standards. From the perspective of talent development, they helped schools increase the proportion of municipal-level backbone teachers, guided them in strengthening research and application for projects, and enhanced teachers' research capabilities. They made every effort to ensure that the experts' heartfelt suggestions were truly implemented, and that high-quality resources were used effectively where they were most needed.
In addition, the Export-Import Bank of China has coordinated experts in related fields to help improve the level of mental health education by training "seed teachers" for mental health and guiding the development of localized counseling manuals. This allows children's progress to be integrated into every vivid lesson and to blossom on every healthy smiling face.
Working together to pave the way for assistance
The Export-Import Bank of China has a deep understanding of the political and people-oriented nature of financial work, and has been actively seeking breakthroughs and entry points for its assistance efforts. It has promoted cooperation in assistance to a deeper level and in a wider range of areas, so that the benefits of assistance can better reach the 1.4 million people in the two counties.
Over the past five years, the Export-Import Bank of China has provided a total of RMB 776 million in financial support to the two counties, deeply integrating itself into the economic and social development of the two counties through a "precision drip irrigation" approach. For example, it supported leading local Chinese herbal medicine processing enterprises in Minxian County to upgrade their standardized production lines, promoting the large-scale and refined development of the industry; and it injected financial vitality into projects such as the construction of rural power stations in Yunyang County, helping the county's green transformation and sustainable development.
Over the past five years, the Export-Import Bank of China has donated 126 million yuan to the two counties and implemented 160 assistance projects. Smooth rural roads, cultural walls, and drainage ditches have transformed the lives of villagers, who used to be covered in dust on sunny days and mud on rainy days, now enjoy paved roads and easy access to buses. The appearance of the villages has significantly improved, and villagers' incomes have increased. In 2024, the per capita disposable income of rural residents in Minxian and Yunyang counties reached 11,490 yuan and 19,265 yuan respectively, indicating a significant improvement in their living standards.
In addition to financial support, over the past five years, the Export-Import Bank of China has successively dispatched many grassroots cadres to work at the front lines to strengthen the assistance efforts and establish a long-term assistance mechanism: helping the two counties build and renovate Party and mass service centers, organizing joint Party building activities, holiday visits, and medical outreach to rural areas, and continuously enhancing the cohesion of Party organizations; and pooling the resources of banks, government, and insurance companies to build a three-tiered system of "comprehensive monitoring + key assistance + basic guarantee" to build a "protective wall" against falling back into poverty through financial means.
As financial resources flow into the fields in a visible and sustainable way, a beautiful new picture of a thriving countryside filled with the sound of students reading aloud is slowly unfolding.
The recent Central Economic Work Conference clearly stated that regular assistance should be incorporated into the overall implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, firmly upholding the bottom line of preventing large-scale relapse into poverty. The Export-Import Bank of China will focus on the needs and expectations of the assisted regions, outlining a comprehensive picture of industrial prosperity, educational efficiency, and civilized rural customs on the canvas of rural revitalization. Building on this momentum and continuing its efforts, the bank will further deepen its targeted assistance work, better contributing to the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas and serving the overall situation of rural revitalization with tangible results.
(Data source: Export-Import Bank of China)
