Since the 18th CPC National Congress, Guidong County in Chenzhou City, one of the first batch of comprehensive pilot counties for new urbanization, has made great achievements in urbanization, with the urbanization rate increasing to 44.7% from 32.25% in 2015.

What has Guidong done to raise the urbanization rate during the past six years?

Guidong County is situated in the mountainous area with the highest altitude among all other counties in Hunan province. It covers an area of 1451.6 square meters and has 232,000 people.

In the past, many people lived in the cold mountainous area with an altitude of over 1,000 meters or areas with hidden geological disasters. As a result, due to the poor transportation and lack of drinking water and production resources, the local people failed to get rid of poverty.

Guidong endeavored to advance new urbanization and help people to move out of the mountainous area and promote the rural revitalization.

After it was listed as a provincial comprehensive pilot county for new urbanization in 2015, Guidong set up a special leading group, introduced a practical 13^th Five-Year Plan and formulated suitable development framework of new urbanization.

The townships mainly lie in the middle of the county, with Oujiang River and the national highway 106 running through, the industrial districts in the north and south, the central area in the west (mainly including administration, service, logistics and business) and the areas for culture, education and living in the east (mainly including markets, education and sanitation), thus forming a well-arranged new urbanization system with the industry and agriculture complementing each other.

It focused on the rural dwellers and strove to improve the rural homestead system so as to guide the rural dwellers to settle in towns nearby.

Dashui Village in Shatian Town was in extreme poverty with 833 households and 2,542 people, among which 1,012 people of 363 households had been registered as poverty-stricken households. This village is located in the mountains where the transportation was quite inconvenient and villagers lived far away from each other, causing great difficulties for their production and life.

Guidong relocated the whole village to Zhoujiang Village in Shatian Town. Besides, in order to help the impoverished villagers work near their homes and shake off poverty, the county encouraged the villagers to plant herbal medicines and develop under-forest economy, and established poverty alleviation workshops by introducing some enterprises such as Jiaye Electronic and Jicheng Leather.

Now this town has become a national key town for small town construction, national demonstration town and provincial demonstration town.

The county has helped 8,901 people of 2,538 households to settle in towns nearby and Datang Town and Qingquan Town have become pilot towns of new urbanization.

Guidong has worked to ensure that the infrastructure construction went hand in hand with industrial development, so as to provide livable living conditions for urban residents while eliminating poverty.

Since 2015, Guidong has made tremendous efforts to develop agriculture, improve industrial quality and offer jobs for relocated households. It invests 30 million yuan each year to expand and improve the development of industries involving tea, herbal medicine and flower.

“I used to make a living by selling mountain products in the town miles away, and now thanks to the Party, I can work downstairs in an electronic factory, which allows me to earn some money while taking care of my family,” said Fu Wenfei, a worker of Dongkou Electronic Factory in Datang Town, who has been lifted out of poverty.

Guidong is rich in ecological resources. Based on the principle of “planting tea on the mountain and building homes down the mountain”, Qingquan Township and Qiaotou Town integrated the industrial development and town building by building a large tea sightseeing garden and rapidly expanding the townships.

The county also endeavored to make the geographical and structural layout of the development of public utilities and services more balanced, provide completed infrastructure for the residents and solve the problems that people are most concerned about in education, elderly care, healthcare and etc.

In recent years, Guidong County has taken various measures to promote new urbanization such as building schools, repairing roads, renovating the old towns and expanding the county, improving the environment and etc. People will embrace a more prosperous, culturally advanced and harmonious Guidong.