Officials from northeastern Jilin gave detailed briefings on the major achievements made in its rural revitalization at a press conference held on Jan 13 in Changchun, the capital city.

Officials said that from 2016 to 2019, Jilin renovated 191,400 rural dilapidated rural houses, including 100,000 poverty-stricken family homes, with a total investment of 3.33 billion yuan ($484 million).

By the end of 2019, 6,622 of the 9,340 administrative villages were provided with garbage treatment, while 1.41 billion yuan was invested to install 434 garbage treatment and transfer stations, buy 1,701 sanitary vehicles and purchase 383,000 garbage collection facilities.

Officials said that currently about 84 percent of villages in the province are basically clean. The low cost and sanitary squat latrines suitable for cold areas have been popularized in the rural area and installed in 164,000 households.

Officials added that more than 2,000 “3A” standard demonstration villages have been built and 200,000 beautiful courtyards and clean households constructed.

In terms of agricultural production, last year, Jilin has stabilized its grain planting area. It overcame a number of difficulties brought about by spring drought, insect infestations, autumn waterlogging and other natural disasters.

The province achieved a good harvest of grain, with total output of 38.78 billion kilograms, 2.45 billion kg higher than the previous year -- ranking it first in the country and accounting for 41.2 percent of the nation’s total output.

At the same time, the per capita disposable income of rural residents in the province is expected to increase by 8.6 percent in 2019. This will be the highest growth rate achieved in the past five years -- some 5.1 percentage points higher than the province’s GDP growth and 1.5 percentage points higher than the growth rate of per capita disposable income of Jilin’s urban residents.

In 2019, 11 kinds of Jilin agricultural products were rated as national well-known regional public brands, and four kinds of agricultural products entered the list of top 100 brands.

In the previous year, Jilin carried out farmland conservation activities and promoted conservation tillage of more than 666,000 hectares. At the same time, last year the province continued to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which was down 1.82 percent and 1.79 percent respectively than in 2018.

In 2019, the quality and safety supervision of agricultural products was strengthened, officials said.

The overall qualification rate of agricultural products was 98.4 percent -- more than one percentage point higher than the national standard. The qualification rate for samples of vegetables, fruit and edible fungi reached 99.1 percent.

From the perspective of the development of its rural financial system, Jilin has established provincial rural financial service companies. It has set up over 2,000 village-level financial service stations, started the dynamic collection and application of rural credit information -- and promoted the establishment of a market-oriented trading in provincial rural property.

While continuing to promote rural land financial reforms, Jilin has actively explored the use of government finance for agriculture and continued to improve a diversified rural financial system.

At the same time, Jilin has innovated financial products and launched nearly 80 agricultural financial products in the past four years.

In addition, it has utilized finance for targeted poverty alleviation. The current loan book of funding extended to poverty-stricken areas in the province is 142.89 billion yuan, an increase of 3.01 billion yuan over the beginning of 2019.

That is 161 percent of the credit plan for targeted poverty alleviation set at the beginning of 2019, which was achieved in the first 10 months of last year.

According to officials, in general, Jilin province has made remarkable achievements in its rural revitalization.

They said that in 2020, Jilin will continue to increase the renovation of dilapidated houses, provide more garbage collections and treatment in rural areas and continue to push to improve the rural living environment.

In terms of agricultural production, in the current year Jilin plans to continue ensuring the effective supply of grain, pigs and other important agricultural products, officials said.

The province will also vigorously promote the integration of primary, secondary and tertiary industries in its rural areas. It will also actively cultivate new-type agricultural business entities and continue to deepen key rural reforms.

Officials said that in terms of agricultural finance, the province will continue to improve its existing rural financial service system.

They added that it will continue to improve the coordination mechanism for government financial policies and measures supporting agriculture, -- as well as effectively utilize the effectiveness of rural financial reforms and continue to help with the steady development of the rural financial market.