China has set the goal to eliminate poverty by 2020. Across the country， particularly in the vast rural areas， many people are contributing to this arduous drive. Among them， Yang Ying from south China’s Hainan Province and Long Xianwen from central China’s Hunan Province have championed programs to lift impoverished populations out of destitute situations. During this year’s session of the National People’s Congress， the two deputies sat down with Beijing Review reporter Yuan Yuan and shared their stories.
Rosy future
Yang Ying brought seasoned suggestions to the annual legislative session held in Beijing on March 5-15.
As the founder of Hainan Rose Valley Industrial Development， Yang has several ideas on how to develop tourism in rural areas and help more rural people out of poverty. For more than a decade， she has devoted herself to planting roses and de- veloping a rose valley in villages in Sanya City of tropical island Hainan Province， which has made the lives of people in these villages better.
The development of the rose valley is a typical example of Chinese people’s efforts to alleviate poverty. Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics show that by the end of 2018， the number of rural people in poverty stood at 16.6 million. With China’s pledged goal of lifting 10 million people out of poverty each year， it expects to eradicate poverty nationwide by 2020. China lifted 13.86 million more people out of poverty in 2018 alone.
When Yang went to Sanya in 2006 for the fi rst time， she already ran a big fl ower business in Shanghai and simply wanted to grow roses there since the warm weather was perfect for growing all year round， unlike Shanghai where the rose season ended in November.
Her initial plan changed when she saw a little girl carrying an even younger boy working in the fields. Yang asked why the girl didn’t go to school and the locals told her that the girl’s family was too poor to afford it.
“It was at that moment that I made up my mind to stay and do something for them，” Yang told Beijing Review. As a rose dealer， Yang began with a rose plantation project.
After two years of repeated failures of trying to tame the rose to the local temperature， Yang’s team fi nally saw roses take root in Sanya. In 2009， Yang’s company rented 184 hectares of farmland from local villagers to grow roses and hired more than 500 village workers.
