Take action in China | Walk in the light! Industrial Revitalization Sings the New Tea Song of Guzhang

The rain falls on the ancient temple, the mist is shrouded, and the green mountains are like Dai.

Returning to his hometown, the "new farmer" Xiang Qingbiao is brewing a new idea - he wants to use traditional eight way tea making techniques to restore the taste of "Guzhang Maojian". Previously, the "Shanbai" team led by him replicated a batch of traditional crafts such as Huizhou ink and released short videos, and in just 5 months, they gained over 8 million fans across the entire network. "Tea is engraved in the memories of the Guzhang people from a young age and integrated into their daily lives." Xiang Qingbiao pondered slightly, "Making more people feel the taste of tea requires the efforts of young people, as well as the sincere and caring assistance."

The Guiding Opinions on Financial Support for Comprehensively Promoting Rural Revitalization and Accelerating the Construction of an Agricultural Strong Country jointly released by the People's Bank of China and five other departments this year emphasize the need to deepen the targeted assistance work of financial institutions. In the journey of assisting rural revitalization, whether it is financial support, exclusive insurance protection, or assistance to seconded cadres, talent and technical training, central financial enterprises have put it into practice and worked together to help regions improve the modernization level of grassroots governance, solidly promote common prosperity, and contribute financial wisdom and strength to achieve the goal of building a strong agricultural country.

Supporting funding! Focusing on improving the industrial chain and promoting the upgrading of characteristic industries

The first priority of targeted assistance is precision.

Guzhang County is a famous hometown of tea, located in the hinterland of Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in Hunan Province. It was once recognized as a deeply impoverished county by the state. "Every household carries small baskets and carries the blue sky to pick tea"... The widely sung song "Guzhang Tea Song" is a true portrayal of the ancient Guzhang tea farmers. However, due to information blockage, poor transportation, scattered planting, and lack of brand empowerment, Guzhang tea once encountered development difficulties.

Local tea farmer Tang Chun told Pingba Town that it was the last town in Guzhang County to develop the tea industry. The current situation of lack of funds, no factory buildings, few equipment, and low production capacity has poured cold water on Hu Weixia, the head of a passionate entrepreneurial tea company. "When I first arrived in 2012, there were many difficulties, and the tea industry here was completely blank."

Since the end of 2015, China Everbright Group, which has been providing targeted assistance to Guzhang, has conscientiously fulfilled its political and social responsibilities as a central enterprise. It has invested more than 94 million yuan in assistance to Guzhang County, of which more than 69 million yuan has been used to support the development of the Guzhang tea industry. In total, it has supported more than 30 tea companies and cooperatives to build or expand processing plants and purchase equipment, helped build more than 40 tea production lines, and helped the Guzhang tea industry move from "slash and burn" to modern, industrialized, and standardized production.

Once, the problem of unsold tea that tea farmers were worried about was also driven by a decrease in labor intensity and planting risks, which led to an increasing enthusiasm for tea cultivation among tea farmers. At present, the tea production in Guzhang County has increased from 4300 tons to the current 12350 tons, and the tea output value has increased from 400 million yuan to 1.7 billion yuan.

【 Expert Perspective 】 Zhang Bin, Deputy Director of the Rural Development and Urban Rural Relations Research Office of the Rural Economic Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, stated that in targeted assistance policies, precision is essential. Only by truly "helping" the real needs, "helping" the urgent needs, and "solving" the real difficulties, continuously enhancing the endogenous development momentum of poverty-stricken areas and the poverty-stricken population, can we maintain the bottom line of "not experiencing large-scale poverty return" from the source, and help to promote industrial development, rural progress, and farmer development in the assistance areas.

Support industry! Based on the main business, strengthen security, and leverage the collaborative advantages of financial institutions

The focus of targeted assistance is on implementation.

【 Urgent Difficulty and Sorrow 】 Guzhang Mountain has a steep slope, with a hat falling from the top, making it dizzy to overlook. In dangerous places, it is difficult for light apes to climb. Most tea gardens are distributed here, which poses certain safety hazards to tea picking and production. Once accidents cause injuries and illnesses, the village level medical resources are very weak, the diagnosis and treatment level is low, and it is difficult to effectively serve the people. The sharing of high-quality health resources is poor; As the scale of tea cultivation gradually increases, problems in enterprise management are gradually emerging, and small and medium-sized physical enterprises generally lack effective guarantees... These have made local operators without modern enterprise management experience feel like they have to make a fuss.

"Financial support, insurance escort, and sales guarantee" is a new path explored by central financial enterprises in their targeted assistance work. "Government, bank, and insurance" risk sharing, innovative service models such as "finance+", "insurance+", and "health+" continue to emerge, helping to promote sustainable and high-quality development of financial assistance.

Everbright Yongming Life Insurance has donated 626 million yuan in accidental injury and major disease insurance protection to workers and teachers in Guzhang Tea Enterprise, and 7.1 million yuan from Everbright Group for the operation of the "Smart Medical+Health Assistance" project. It has equipped more than 100 general practitioners with mobile phone assistance devices for local county medical and health institutions, achieving the integration of remote medical network services for "county-level+town level+village level" medical institutions, and assisting grassroots medical personnel in diagnosing and treating more than 100 common diseases.

In response to the pain points of weak enterprise operation and management, it brings mature business concepts and management experience into the mountains through talent exchange and training, driving local enterprises to improve market capabilities and gradually adapt to market competition. Many small tea factories that used to be workshop style have now been upgraded to standardized company operations and management.

Long Lingzhi, the person in charge of Niujiaoshan Tea in Guzhang County, said, "The seconded cadres sent by financial central enterprises use their management experience accumulated over decades of work, lead by example, respond to calls, and lead us in operating the enterprise, which greatly helps our brand growth."

From the perspective of experts, Zeng Yu, Vice President of the Planning Institute of the Urban and Small Town Reform and Development Center of the National Development and Reform Commission, stated that based on the resource endowment and industrial characteristics of poverty-stricken areas, scientifically formulating financial assistance plans, strengthening risk prevention and resolution, leveraging the advantages of financial organizations and social coordination capabilities, and enhancing the financial service capabilities for agriculture, rural areas, and farmers are beneficial explorations to drive counties to improve their market capabilities, gradually adapt to market competition, and promote the extension of basic services to rural areas.

Fu Zhi! Incubate a new business model of "digital commerce promotes agriculture" and create replicable assistance plans

The key to targeted assistance lies in its effectiveness.

【 Urgent Difficulties and Sorrows 】 Guzhang tea should not only be produced but also sold well. Nearly 70% of the agricultural population in Guzhang County is engaged in the tea industry, 80% of agricultural income comes from tea, and 90% of villages grow tea. As of now, the total area of tea gardens in Guzhang County has reached 205000 acres, with an average per capita area exceeding 1.4 acres. The sales of tea directly determine the "money bag" of local people.

[Relief measures] It is another exploration of the financial "national team" to fully tap the multiple values of rural areas, and rely on the "digital commerce for agriculture" and "Internet plus" to help agricultural products go out of villages and into cities. Everbright Yongming Life Insurance has innovatively launched an e-commerce live streaming assistance sales model, cultivating "internet famous" new farmers, and offering preferential policies of "three exemptions and one combination" for free development fees, free entry fees, free diversion fees, and cooperative marketing. At the same time, it subsidizes marketing expenses, introduces the e-commerce model, and takes multiple measures to open up the "mountain road" of Guzhang tea. "The seconded cadres in the designated assistance county took the initiative to become anchors and promote tea and local specialty agricultural products, which slowly led us into the online sales market." Hu Weixia said, "The idea of online sales was inspired by them. Now, e-commerce sales account for one-third of our annual sales."

Anchoring "traffic" brings "sales", from inviting Hunan badminton world champions Bao Chunlai and Chai Biao as public welfare ambassadors for Guzhang's famous specialty products "Guzhang Maojian" and "Guzhang Black Tea", to organizing e-commerce training and holding "village broadcast" selection... In Guzhang, the smallest county in Hunan with a population of only 143000, a highly influential local rural "internet celebrity" matrix has been incubated, such as "Shanbai", "Tea Hometown Jun", and "Bacon Little Prince".

[Expert perspective] He Anhua, director of the Rural Development and Urban Rural Relations Research Office of the Rural Economic Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said that through online live broadcast of agricultural products, offline agricultural products exhibition and sales, and cooperation with external institutions to carry out consumer assistance, a group of financial "national teams" have constantly increased their efforts in consumer assistance, expanded the scale of agricultural products sales, and formed a one-stop closed virtuous circle of "enterprises+cooperatives+bases+factories+farmers", driving more people in regions to help stabilize and improve their income levels and integrate into the modern market.

"In recent years, based on its natural, ecological, and industrial advantages, our county has always adhered to the tea industry as a pillar industry to promote rural revitalization and build a moderately prosperous society in all respects." Deng Xiaodong, Secretary of the Guzhang County Party Committee, said, "From 400 million yuan to 1.7 billion yuan, this is the change in the tea leaf industry output value of Guzhang County in the past seven years."

The financial assistance has achieved results, and the revitalization of strong villages and prosperous people has achieved tangible results.

In the vibrant tea gardens in the hinterland of the Wuling Mountains, the third batch of newly appointed cadres of Everbright Group are singing the new tea song of rural revitalization with local villagers

Guidance unit

Network Communication Bureau of the Central Cyberspace Administration

Co-presented by

New Media Center of Xinhua News Agency

China Industry Newspaper Association

Xinhua News Agency Hunan Branch

Final review: Chen Zhichun

Intern: Dai Xinyan and Feng Xiaoyi

Special Thanks

National Development and Reform Commission Urban and Small Town Reform and Development Center

Rural Economic Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs