China has steadfastly advanced its transport since 2012 as a way to shatter the bottleneck restraining rural development and contribute to its poverty alleviation efforts.
The country has built or upgraded 59,000 kilometers of roads serving resource transport, tourism and business development in poor areas, offering a solid guarantee for farmers to get rid of poverty.
As of September last year, all towns, townships and administrative villages with feasible conditions had been connected to asphalt and concrete roads, and bus services. The State also subsidized the upgrading of 17,000 kilometers of national expressways and 53,000 kilometers of national highways.
By now, almost all county seats in poor areas have access to highways of Grade II or above.
The transport progress has enhanced the "blood making" capacity of poor areas. For instance, Shiquan county, situated in the Qinling-Bashan Mountains in Ankang, Northwest China's Shaanxi province, has been working to improve its transportation over the recent years. It has built 1,186 kilometers of roads for business development and 352 bridges.
The enhanced transportation led to rapid development of local agriculture. Now the county is home to 11,000 mu (733 hectares) of day lilies and 75,000 mu of silkworm breeding fields.
Besides, the transport progress is also creating massive jobs for poor residents. In recent years, local transport departments across China have offered various public service jobs weighted towards poor residents, such as road construction and maintenance, as well as express delivery.
As of August the last year, China had offered 668,000 rural jobs related to roads, including 270,000 for public service, benefiting more than 370,000 registered impoverished residents.
What comes together with the rural transportation progress is also thriving rural tourism. In Xuanhe township, Liancheng county, East China's Fujian province, nice and neat courtyards in ancient Chinese styles are attracting huge numbers of tourists coming for the county's specialty - dried sweet potato slices.
The smooth roads have led to efficient and two-way circulation of personnel, commodities, capital and information between rural and urban areas. In 2020, the number of express packages delivered to and from rural areas surpassed 30 billion, and the exchange of industrial products and farm produce between urban and rural areas totaled 1.5 trillion yuan ($232 billion).
In recent years, integrated road passenger transport in urban and rural areas has made progress. A passenger transport network with county seats as centers, towns and townships as junctions, and administrative villages as points has taken shape.
According to an official with the Ministry of Transport, China will keep enhancing its road construction in rural areas and build more roads to connect villages and even households, so as to effectively align its poverty alleviation achievements with rural revitalization. ■