China, People's Republic of: Policy Research and Capacity Building to Strengthen Rural Economies in the Southwest Region of the People’s Republic of China

Agriculture, natural resources and rural development / Rural water policy, institutional and capacity development

Industry and trade / Industry and trade sector development

While the PRC has made tremendous progress in reducing poverty approximately 850 million people have emerged out of absolute poverty in the last four decades rapid growth has also given rise to new concerns, including social inequality. The country announced in February 2021 that it eradicated absolute poverty. However, gains from rapid growth have not been shared evenly, with the PRC's Gini coefficient remaining at a relatively high level above 0.46 over the past years.

Guizhou is one of the lower-income provinces in the PRC. In 2019, its gross domestic product per capita was at CNY46,433 or 65.8% of the PRC average (CNY70,581). In 2017, its poverty rate of 7.75% was more than double the national rate of 3.10%. In support of the national government's innovative approach of inclusive development, the Guizhou Provincial Government identified and started developing key industries that have a strong potential to create labor income opportunities, such as ecological poultry, farming, tea, edible fungus cultivation, Chinese medicine herbs cultivation, and tourism.

Despite these efforts, further development is needed, particularly in rural areas, where resource utilization is limited. Strengthening rural economies to ensure labor income opportunities for the rural low-income population in the southwest PRC is a key concern. Policies are needed to build a firm foundation of labor income opportunities to protect and improve the lives of the rural low-income population in the southwest region of the PRC. There is also a need to further understand how the changing national and global contexts affect the local economy. This has become even more important following the PRC's achievement of its goal of absolute poverty eradication in 2020 which saw low-income households starting to seek more stable and higher labor income streams. Investigating the various factors of production between urban and rural areas, strengthening of farm and non-farm income streams, reducing labor income gap within the region, and promoting a coordinated and new regional development approach to provide sustainable labor income opportunities is needed.

Study on strengthening rural economies that ensures opportunities of the rural low-income population in the southwest PRC completed

Policy advice on strengthening rural economies that ensures labor income opportunities of the rural low-income population in the southwest PRC finalized

Understanding of local government officials and enterprise management of approaches to sustainable operations strengthened and implemented

Firm: Consultants' Qualification Selection (CQS): policy research and capacity building team (lead specialist, agriculture economist, regional economist, economic analyst, area specialists): $194,100

Individual: individual consultants' selection: Resource persons: $20,400

ADB will engage the consultants following the ADB Procurement Policy (2017, as amended from time to time) and its associated project administration instructions and/or staff instructions.