All the past and the present leaders of the Yichang Municipal Government have been striving to achieve one highest goal, which is to make Yichang “a city in the garden, a village in the scenery, people in the painting”, and let people enjoy beautiful living environment no matter they are in the city or in the countryside.
In the process of constructing a modern mega-city, Yichang has promoted the coordinated development of urban and rural ecology. Measures have been taken to achieve new countryside construction and new urbanization together, promote the integration of urban and rural construction and industry construction, and combine the traditional and new development ways. Thus, a unique and coordinative development approach characteristic of “Four Modernizations” (including industrialization, informatization, urbanization and agricultural modernization) is taking shape.
One Sight of Longquan Town of Yiling District. (Reporter: Zhu Min; Photos by correspondent: Zhou Jianping)
Coordinative Urban-rural Development Contributes to a “Garden City”
As the strategic direction and goal of promoting the economic and social transformation and upgrading, the coordinative urban-rural development as well as the promotion of “Four Modernizations” coordinative construction is a complex project involving economic, social, ecological, livelihood and other aspects.
The Yichang municipal government is guiding the modern mega-city construction according to the core idea of “environment first” and the standard of “garden city”, focusing on the implementation of the strategy of “Four Integrations” involving the overall plan, industrial development, urban and rural construction and public services. In recent years, the city has spared no efforts to build an integrated the city-county-village three level planning system, coordinate urban and rural development and accelerate coordinative construction of “Four Modernizations” in a systematic and scientific way.
The municipal government formulated and issued “Proposals for Coordinating Urban-rural Development and Accelerating Urban and Rural Development" and “Proposals for the New Human-centered Urbanization" for two consecutive years, putting forward the ideas of “eastern areas lead the development of western area, areas along the river lead the development of the inland” and the general layout of “eastern area for industrial development, western area for tourism". These ideas make the urban layout be closely co-coordinated with the regional economic development and industrial layout, and be suitable for the carrying capacity of resources and environment. Meanwhile, a modern urban system of “mega-cities-smaller cities-key towns(general town)-new rural communities” was built, and Yidu county-level City and the Yiling District of Yichang were designated to be the pilot places of the coordinative work of urban and rural areas.
Currently, the eastern counties of Yichang have basically completed the planning work, and the pilot towns of municipal new urbanization, some of the center towns, characteristic towns all have started the planning work. In addition, the “1 + 6” planning of Longquan Town of Yiling District and Anfusi Town of Zhijiang City have firstly passed through the assessment among 21 provincial demonstration towns of “Four Modernizations" coordinative development. Therefore, the overall planning system was initially formed.
From setting pilot village for new rural construction to overall promoting the construction and building the demonstration areas of coordinative urban and rural development and new urbanization, Yichang has become more confident of exploring its way of coordinative urban and rural development.
Average Annual Income of Farmers Will Exceed Ten Thousand Yuan
Recently, with Liu Hanwu, the deputy general manager of Xiaoshi Group, the reporter walked into the Xiaoshi Tea High-tech Industrial Park. The workshops include refined tea, tea powder production, tea drinks production are separate with each other. You can only find the conveyor belt working orderly and slightly and one or two workers busy working when you visit the varied workshops along the passage.
It is learnt that the traditional tea products only make use of less than 10% of the leaves so that 90% of the tea leaves are wasted. Only by further development and comprehensive utilization can we achieve the biggest value.
In recent years, the comprehensive utilization adopted in the production of Xiaoshi Tea has broadened the channels of increasing incomes for farmers and the average mu revenue of 30% of the tea gardens exceeded 1 million.
The further development of industrialization brought real benefits to farmers. Through land transfer, Xiaoshi Group established a new economic union with the farmers of Yangjiawan Village. Except for the fixed income of 1000 yuan per mu from land transfer, the tea farmers who participate in the tea production can get another pays. In Yangjiawan Village, Zhangyuan, the tea farmer of group three, told the reporter that seven acres of tea garden of his family have all been transferred. His income did improve although he had less right to manage the garden after the unified management. “In the past years, the general annual revenue was more than 30,000 yuan, but we have already got more than 20,000 yuan in the first half of this year. As the revenues of spring tea account for half of the total income and I also have other jobs to do, the total annual family revenue will reach more than 50,000 yuan”, Zhang Dayuan said.
It is learnt that last year, the output value of processed agricultural products reached 136.9 billion RMB yuan, which is 2.5 times of the total output value of the agricultural industry. Among the new industrial enterprises having emerged every year, more than half of them are the manufacturers of processed agriculture products. Yichang has 20 famous brands of agricultural products, which is 1/3 of the top product brands in Hubei Province and over 1/2 of that in Yichang City. During this year, the per capita net income of residents in rural areas in Yichang will exceed 10 thousand RMB yuan, and the characteristic agriculture industrialization will be their main income source.
With the booming of characteristic industries, the development modes have been emerging continuously. The representative ones include: major enterprise-driving mode, industrial park radiation mode, modern agriculture leading mode and ecological tourism expansion mode, which provides constant driving force for urbanization development and also creates better conditions for rural population to work in nearby areas and for their citizenization.
Build beautiful country, live “city life”
Following the step of the autumn, we walked into Longquan Town in the Yiling District. The waves of aroma that is a mixture of liquor, flowers, and grass floated in the air. What came to our eyes were rows of houses with red walls and white roofs, plots of green wilderness, and a flat and broad asphalt road connecting the town and nearby villages. At its center near the river bank, a row of white classic fences stretch to the end of the road, creating a special flavor of the ancient town.
Numerous plants, modern industrial parks, broad asphalt roads, and garden-style living quarters ……we could not tell Daohuaxiang Factory from Longquan Town.
In recent years, Daohuaxiang Group has invested more than 0.4 billion RMB yuan in constructing infrastructural facilities, including building roads, managing rivers, building artificial lake, culture square and sports center……The improving of the living environment enables rural population to enjoy the comfortable living space as urban residents do.
This year, after the water-supply expansion project of Longquan Water Supply Plant was completed, which was made possible by Daohuaxiang’s additional investment of 10 million RMB yuan, over 10 thousand households will shake off the problem of drinking water shortage. Hu Xinlian, a resident of the Longquan Village, said, “In the past, we had to carry water from the river, at least 10 buckets every day. After the water plant was completed, it is much more convenient for us villagers to get clean water.”
Over the years, Longquan Town government has given priority to improving people’s livelihood. Great importance has been attached to improving people’s clothing, food, housing and transportation, as well as employment, education, healthcare, with th aim of building new countryside with “beautiful villages, nice environment, happy life and harmonious society”. A series of all-around pro-people projects and safety & health projects have promoted the new-type urbanization of Longquan Town.
From the government to specialized cooperatives and leading enterprises, the modes of the new-type urbanization construction have become multiple and Perse. By implementing the effective policy, Yichang municipal government has encouraged industrial and commercial capitals to enter the field of modern agriculture construction. Thus the countryside has become a gathering place of capitals, technology, and talents, and a strong force for the construction of the new-type urbanization has been formed with the joining of multiple participants.
Release urban-rural integration vigor by “delegating power to strengthen town”
At the end of the Shanghai-Chongqing Expressway at the Anfusi Exit, a broad asphalt avenue extends from the exit to Anfusi Town in Zhijiang City (a county-level city of Yichang). Standing at the sides of the avenue are buildings with black roofs and white walls, beautiful and neat. A new flourishing Anfusi Town is lying in front of us.
At the Government Affairs Service Center of Anfusi Town, 8 service windows are for 103 service items, including land, housing, industry and commerce, agriculture. Through approving system with enterprises admittance, the red tape has been cut, thus the enterprises can deal with application issues much more effectively than ever.
Tian Shuirong, the president of Oriental Years Modern Agriculture Industrial Park, has invested in many areas, and it was his first time to apply for business license in a town. He said, “In the past, it took half a month to apply for a business license, but nowadays it took only a week. I have saved me so much time.”
By simplifying administration and delegating power, Anfusi Town has been constantly optimizing the investement environment for entrepreneurship and employment. The thresholds have been lowered for entering the inPidually-owned business; the process of applying for business license has been simplified; tax preferential policy has been implemented; people from rural areas are encoureged to start their own businesses in the city. Under the stimulation of abovementioned policies, there was an increase of 3623 households running their own businesses in the town last year. And by positively guiding the surplus rural labor force, land-lost farmers and return-home farmers to find jobs at their nearby places, more and more people decide to settle down in Anfusi Town. Currently, the industrial park in the town employs 4,000 people all year round, recruits 10,000 people in specific seasons, which enable farmers to earn over 0.2 billion RMB yuan per year.
The mayor of Anfusi Town said that after Zhijiang City delegated power to the town, the local government has begun to overall manage governmental resources by different methods and attract social capitals to construct infrastructures. “A series reform policy attracted numerous enterprises to invest, and also motivated the villagers to participate in the construction,” the Mayor Miao Tao said.
In recent years, Yichang municipal government has started to simplify administration and delegate power according to the policies in the national and provincial pilot areas of “delegating power to strengthen the town”. It has delegated administrative approval power to major towns and central towns and characteristic towns, improved the institutions in towns and villages. Enjoying the benefits of “town-level city”, the local governments advanced their working ability and efficiency, and positively participated in the industrialization, informationization, urbanization and agriculture modernization. The vigor of building beautiful villages has been constantly released.
Currently, the new countryside construction has passed the pilot phase and entered the promotion phase. The “circle-block-belt” development pattern of the new countryside construction is forming in speed. The demonstration pilot project of industrialization, informationization, urbanization and agriculture modernization is under further promotion. The urban-rural integration development is carried out in order. (Reporter: Deng Mingming)