Baise, Guangxi: New Countryside Program Impact May Be

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 GUANGZHOU 030954 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR EAP/CM AND DRL USDA FOR FAS/ITP AND FAS/FAA USDOC FOR 4420/ITA/MAC/MCQUEEN USPACOM FOR FPA E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EAGR ECON SOCI PGOV CH SUBJECT: Baise, Guangxi: New Countryside Program Impact May Be Limited REFERENCE: A) Guangzhou 4033 B) Guangzhou 30952 (U) This document is sensitive but unclassified. Please protect accordingly. ¶1. (U) Summary: Baise in western Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has been a poor place for many years. Sporadic fighting with Vietnam through the late 1970s prevented concerted efforts at economic development. In response to Beijing's 11th Five-Year Plan to develop rural areas, Baise is building model villages and is continuing pilot programs to develop small scale income projects. Providing benefits to the broader rural population requires more investment into infrastructure. However, building the New Socialist Countryside in Baise could be difficult, due to the prefectural government's inability to fund its share of development costs. End Summary. Agriculture and rural poverty: raising incomes -------------- -------------- ¶2. (U) Baise Prefecture is predominantly an agricultural economy. The government's priority in its rural work is to increase farmers' incomes, especially by guiding farmers to grow cash crops. Baise's major cash crops include fruits, vegetable, mulberry, tobacco and sugars. Baise can grow over 100 types of fruits, and is one of the three places in China suitable to grow mangos. It is also Guangxi's largest center for raising vegetables out of season as well as a major sugarcane area of China. In the mountainous areas, the Government is encouraging farmers to grow tobacco, tea, mulberry and raise silk cocoons, which can be harvested four times a year in Baise compared with only once in eastern China. However, officials admitted the quality of Baise's products is not very high and needs to be upgraded. ¶3. (U) Farmers in Baise are widely scattered in valleys and mountain areas. For a prefecture that only has a population of 3.65 million, there are over 20,000 villages spread among in its valleys and mountains, with some are as small as 50 households. The best farmland and most prosperity is concentrated in more level valley areas, especially by the two local main rivers called "Zuojiang" and "Youjiang" (Right and Left Rivers),with poverty concentrated in the mountains. The income gap between the two areas is very large. In a model village called "Toutang," part of the Toutang township that Congenoff visited in the Youjiang Valley, the average annual income is RMB 3,095 (USD 389) and can be as high as RMB 30,000 to RMB 40,000 (USD 3,800-5,060). In contrast, in remote and mountainous areas, people's average annual income can be as low as RMB 300 to 500 (USD 38 to 63),well-below China's abject poverty line and much lower than the World Bank poverty standard of USD 1 per day. Ref B discusses an overview of Baise's economy and ref A discusses Guangxi's rural development goals. Raising Incomes through the "Courtyard Agriculture" -------------- -------------- ¶4. (U) In Toutang Village, the local government is actively promoting a practical, small-scale farming model called the "courtyard economy" in which farmers raise small animals for meat, such as frogs or rabbits, or plant cash crops in small spaces, which are usually their courtyards. One family that raises a type of Thai frog and rabbits in Toutang Village for local sale saw its annual household income increase from RMB 10,000 (USD 1,260) in 2004 to more than RMB 40,000 (5,060) in 2005. The Government designates local successful and certified farmers to provide free training and educational materials to villagers in neighboring villages to promote the courtyard economy. The director of the Toutang Village Committee, who began raising rabbits in 2004 and became a local success story, has trained a total of 60 farmers during the past year. ¶5. (U) Like most area in China, Baise' farming is still based on individual households. Farmers have few machines, some small tractors, small hand threshers, and handheld power tillers; most farmers rely on manual labor and water buffalos. Several self-organized distribution units help farmers to sell their produce and eliminate the middleman. Village officials complained that it was difficult to get loans from local credit cooperatives, and most farmers had neither the concept nor courage to borrow money to expand their farming scale or start a processing business. GUANGZHOU 00030954 002 OF 002 ¶6. (U) Labor export is an important income source for local rural families. The whole prefecture has 800,000 people working outside in Guangdong and Fujian. Toutang Town, with 20,000 rural people out of a total population of 24,000, receives 20% of its GDP in remittances from people working outside the town, with farming and services contributing 70% and 10% respectively. In Toutang Village, with 3,600 inhabitants, 547 people work outside as migrants, most of them young and comparatively "well-educated." The local Government provides limited technical training to farmers before they leave for outside jobs. Anti-poverty and the Building "Socialist New Countryside" -------------- -------------- ¶7. (U) Baise benefits from the central government's grand anti-poverty project called "Eight Seven Plan," a plan to take seven years from 2004 till 2010 to relieve the whole country's 80 million poor people from poverty. The Prefecture receives from the Central Government approximately RMB 200 million in special financial support each year. Other benefits also include interest-free loans, tax waivers, and aid from Guangzhou, which also supports Baise's poverty relief efforts. Officials said one could find in Baise a greater variety of poverty relief programs than in any other prefecture, leading to a the number of Baise's poor dropping from 1.4 million in the past to the current total of 220,000. ¶8. (U) Following Beijing's instructions, Baise is preparing a plan for "constructing the new socialist countryside." Officials said the prefecture has a different goal in this national campaign, the whole country is moving toward the "comparatively well-off" (xiao kang) standard of living, while Baise is still trying to make sure all its people were fed, clothed, and sheltered. Most of Baise's plans remain on the drawing board but the government has rebuilt several relatively well-off villages into model villages as showcases, selected because their farmers could repay their housing loans. The selected model villages have comparatively high incomes and strong agricultural foundations. According to officials, farmers elsewhere will be responsible for most of the cost of infrastructure construction in their villages, while the government will only contribute a small portion of it. The government also plans to move people living in small and remote villages, particularly those that have an average size of 50 or smaller households, to locations where they can be reached with government services more easily and efficiently. ¶9. (U) Baise has not felt much impact from competing imports from ASEAN, which is building a free trade zone with China. Most of ASEAN's agricultural imports are sold to China's inland markets, while Baise's agriculture is mainly self-sufficient, though this appears to be gradually changing. Comment -------------- ¶10. (U) A large rural population with a low income base limits Baise's ability to develop quickly. While pilot programs and showcase villages help a limited number of people, depending on poor farmers to fund the cost of local infrastructure will mean that most rural areas will remain undeveloped. GOLDBERG