Xiping Return-to-Hometown Entrepreneurship: One Person Drives a Whole Region to Prosperity
□Our reporter Zeng Zhaoyang, our correspondent Hu Junhua
"Working at Jinfeng Animal Husbandry, I earn a monthly wage of 4,500 yuan and can still take care of my family. During the busy farming season, it doesn't get in the way of farm work. It's much better than working away from home." On May 31, worker Huang Chaoyang, busy in the net-weaving workshop, spoke about his job with pride all over his face.
Huang Chaoyang, 42 this year, is from Zhangyao Village, Erlang Township, Xiping County. He has two children, and his wife is ill, making the family relatively poor. After being demobilized from the army in 2011, he went to work at Jinfeng Animal Husbandry, which not only solved his employment problem but also resolved his family's poverty.
Jinfeng Animal Husbandry was founded in 1989 by Zhou Axiang, a farmer from Erlang Township who returned home to start a business. After more than 20 years of development and growth, the enterprise now covers 700 mu of land and has more than 1,000 employees. In 2015, it was listed on the New Third Board. As the enterprise grew, Zhou Axiang did not forget his fellow villagers. Of the more than 1,000 employees, nearly 400 are farmers from the villages around the company.
Although Xiping County is not a poverty-stricken county, it has 65 poverty-stricken villages and 44,000 poor people, so the task of poverty alleviation remains arduous. By promoting the entrepreneurial spirit and improving the policy system, the county enables returning entrepreneurs to realize their life's value through entrepreneurship. At present, the county has more than 2,300 returning migrant workers who have started businesses, founding more than 1,000 enterprises, with annual operating income of more than 1 billion yuan, driving employment for 15,000 people.
To support migrant workers returning home to start businesses, the county has formulated and issued a series of policies. The county finance department has allocated 10 million yuan as interest subsidy funds to subsidize loans for poor households and enterprises that help poor households, and has arranged special fiscal funds to give financial awards and subsidies to industrial poverty alleviation base construction projects, giving certain rewards to eligible industrial poverty alleviation bases; it has issued financial policies and preferential policies, tilting toward poor households starting businesses and enterprises that absorb poor household laborers for employment in many aspects, including project land use, labor, taxation, industrial support, and employment training.
"Good policies leverage it, good industries drive it, good services push it, and a good environment stimulates it, so that one returnee entrepreneur can drive a whole region to prosperity and help win the battle against poverty!" Nie Xiaoguang, secretary of the Xiping County Party Committee, is full of confidence in the prospects of entrepreneurship-driven poverty alleviation.