Voices from the two sessions

Big data is a powerful way of targeting poverty alleviation. With the help of big data, we can identify people living in poverty and clearly understand the reasons for their plight, which will help us to better implement poverty-alleviation measures.

A poverty index could be established for each poverty-stricken household, which would help to identify the worst-hit families, villages and townships, and make poverty visible.

The use of big data would also help the government to implement different, tailored measures based on the needs of different people. It could also help to clarify responsibilities and accurately monitor and evaluate the use of poverty-relief funds.

Pang Guomei, an NPC deputy and Party head of Yunfu city, Guangdong province

Yunfu's climate, water and soil resources make the city a very good place to cultivate herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine. Demand for the herbs will rise as TCM becomes more influential, so growing them is a sustainable way of raising farmers' incomes and eventually lifting them out of poverty.

To extract greater value from the sector, we have tried to combine it with other industries, such as deep processing - full exploitation of resources - and tourism.

For example, Luoding, a county-level city administered by Yunfu, is the country's main growing area for a type of cinnamon called Chinese cassia.

In the city's Lianzhou district, a deep processor of Chinese cassia has helped to raise the incomes of 1,200 farming households by 3,100 yuan ($450) a year.

Another district called Tanbin has built a cultivation base for Chinese cassia that covers more than 6,660 hectares. It also doubles as a tourist destination because it allows visitors to see how the herbs are planted and participate in the process.