Regional pairing pays off, rewriting lives

The paired assistance initiative between East China's Fujian province and Northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region — a milestone east-west poverty alleviation program launched in 1996 — has evolved into a powerful model for balanced regional development, experts said.

Reflecting on this three-decade journey, Qiu Shuilin, an associate research fellow at the Fujian Academy of Social Sciences, said that although Fujian and Ningxia are far apart, China's strategic decision 30 years ago to pair eastern advantages with western resources aimed to ensure that development leaves no one behind.

"Beyond economic aid, it underscores a national governance approach that drives regional coordination and showcases institutional strengths," Qiu said, adding that driven by top-level design, the mechanism systematically channels funds, technology and expertise from advanced areas to developing ones.

Official data shows that, over the years, 39 economically advanced counties and districts in Fujian have paired with nine in Ningxia, facilitating a two-way exchange of over 600 officials to share governance expertise.

Industrially, over 1,600 Fujian enterprises have invested over 100 billion yuan ($14.89 billion) in Ningxia, forging deep supply-chain synergies in local agriculture, such as wine, wolfberries and livestock, as well as cutting-edge artificial intelligence computing centers that power Fujian's digital needs while driving Ningxia's development.

The partnership focuses heavily on livelihoods and employment. Through labor platforms, it has facilitated 330,000 labor transfers, while using local workshops and e-commerce to support another 200,000 nearby jobs.

In 2018, Fujian battery-maker Scud Group founded a vocational education college in Ningxia's Guyuan city with a three-year pipeline. Students learn theory in Ningxia in year one, complete practical training in Fujian in year two, and finish with corporate internships in year three — a model that bridges classroom learning with factory production.

"We train exactly what the market demands," said Jiang Zhicheng, the group's vice-president. The college has trained over 1,600 Ningxia students, achieving full employment and average monthly salaries of 5,000 yuan.

In 2020, illness forced Yang Qinqin from a once poverty-stricken family of five children to miss her high school entrance exam. The program threw her a lifeline with free tuition and housing, bringing her 2,000 kilometers from inland Ningxia to coastal Fuzhou, capital of Fujian, in 2021. After excelling in training, she became a Scud Group clerk in 2023, now earning up to 6,000 yuan monthly and relocating her mother to Fuzhou in 2024.