Guangdong Beefs up Farming Development in Hilly Areas ����A widespread drive to unfold farming in hilly areas is sweeping through the southern province of Guangdong. ����The drive is in response to President Jiang Zemin's call for the province's leading role to basically materialize modernization in China. ����Summing up the experience and lesson in hilly area development over the last decade, decision-makers in the province, municipalities and counties have reached a consensus: The province's economy cannot take off without economic development in the hilly areas. ����The Party committee and the provincial government have set Gaozhou and Meizhou as two examples in this connection. The two places have been adhering to an overall program to tackle their hilly regions involving hills, water, land, forests and roads. They run industries, lift the poor villages from poverty, revitalize the rural economy in an all-round way to develop agriculture under the local conditions. They plant ecological forests on the top of the mountains, economic forests at the waist of the mountains and cash crops at the foot of the mountains. ����In the past decade, Gaozhou led the farmers to open up the waste hills and slopes by planting litchi. longan, banana and other precious fruits in a scientific way, shaping up an industry with local traits. Meizhou has persistently developed pomelo and tea, resulting in local industries and products. ����Cultivating and developing agricultural enterprises to set up farming industrialization in the hilly areas. O.1 million farmers are engaged in the circulation sector in Maoming city. Gaozhou runs over 1000 fruit marketing outlets nationwide. The Wen's Food Group Corp and other three enterprises help numerous farmer households to raise chickens. Guangdong has nurtured 50 key farming enterprises and 48 such enterprises in l6 poor counties. 50 counties and municipalities in the province have made a great effort to nurture key farming enterprises to push ahead with the development of local resources. ����Collecting funding by all means. Guangdong has solicited foreign funding to develop farming and farming products processing . The Agricultural Bank of China has given priority to raising loans to develop the hilly areas. The province has put 5.3 billion yuan into farming in the hilly areas. The communications, water conservancy and power departments have also taken measures to help the agricultural development in the hilly areas in the province. ����The province has adhered to the democratic and scientific way to develop key enterprises for the hilly areas and avoided overlapping projects. Economicnews 1999-07-03 Page1 Full Story in Chinese