Editor's Note: This is the eighth of a series of reports on poverty alleviation in the city's 14 impoverished counties and districts. 2020 marks the final stage of China's war against poverty alleviation and the aim to build a moderately prosperous society in all aspects, the Chongqing Municipal Information Office organized 14 press conferences to showcase each county and district's poverty alleviation efforts and achievements.

Chongqing's Wushan County officially withdrew from the national impoverished counties list in 2018 and has achieved a 10.6% annual growth rate of rural per capita disposable income, which is much higher than the country's average, Wushan's Party chief Li Chunkui told a press conference on Monday.

Ever since it joined the nationwide movement to eradicate extreme poverty, Wushan has seen 890,000 poor people or 240,000 poor households in 120 poor villages lifted out of poverty, with the per capita disposable income for rural residents rising from 6,935 yuan in 2014 to 11,229 yuan in 2019.

These were all made possible because Wushan adopted a poverty relief path that's most suitable to its conditions, Li said. "We implemented eight 'outreach programs' to address healthcare, education, housing, employment, industry, infrastructure, subsistence allowance, and paired assistance."

With the establishment of the three-tiered healthcare system incorporating all county, township, and village medical facilities, and the exploration of the four-thronged expense mechanism including medicare reimbursement, hospital waiver, government subsidy, and self-finance, 350 million yuan worth of medical aid has been provided to a total of 77,000 patients seeking for help.

To achieve essential equilibrium in the allocation of education resources, and to improve the overall quality of teaching staff, 310 million yuan worth of tuition subsidy has been provided to a total of 240,000 students.

To improve residents' living conditions and to strike a balance between human activities and ecosystem protection, 145,000 rural houses have gone through rigorous safety appraisal, 31,459 of which have been identified as ramshackle houses and demolished, 45,900 residents have been relocated out of ecologically fragile areas, and 10,395 households have seen their old houses revamped.

As a labor surplus county, Wushan has been devoted to providing professional and technical training to labor-capable residents, with 180,000 workers exported each year, generating over 5 billion yuan worth of labor revenue. The local labor services brands such as "Wushan Construction Workers" and "Wushan Redleaf Sisters" have proven to be very popular among employers. Six thousand five hundred twelve welfare posts have also been offered to poor households within a close neighborhood, to implement poverty alleviation through employment.

What's more, Wushan has also successfully established the first batch of National' All-for-one' Tourism Demonstration Areas, allowing for more residents to make a living in its course of tourism development.

As the saying goes, building roads is the first step to become rich; Wushan has been committed to improving its infrastructure by building and renovating highways, roads, water reservoirs, tunnels, cables, waste, and sewage treatment centers, as well as public toilets.

Under the paired assistance program, 12,802 Party members and cadres have been sent to help more than 24,600 poor households fight poverty.

"With the strong support from the various departments of the Central and municipal governments, Wushan has accumulated nearly 8 billion yuan worth of poverty relief funds since it answered the nation's call to wipe out extreme poverty," Li said, citing the China Three Gorges Corporation's targeted assistance, the east-west poverty relief cooperation with Shandong's Yantai City, and the paired assistance between the Guangdong Provincial Poverty Relief Group and Chongqing's Beibei and Tongliang districts.

From Aug. 25 to Oct. 20, the 14 counties and districts of Wanzhou, Qianjiang, Wulong, Fengdu, Xiushan, Kaizhou, Yunyang, Wushan, Fengjie, Shizhu, Chengkou, Wuxi, Youyang, and Pengshui will come forward and hold press conferences on their progress in poverty alleviation.