Since the 18^th CPC National Congress, SZSE has taken poverty alleviation as a major political task, moved faster to tackle it, given play to the advantages, highlighted innovation, consolidated the foundation of organizational guarantee, implemented measures to alleviate poverty by leveraging the capital market, conduct precise poverty alleviation covering people’s livelihood, education, finance, and industry, and taken areas that it has given pairing assistance to as important places to train cadres. SZSE’s achievements in poverty alleviation have been recognized and publicized by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and the Gansu provincial government.

SZSE, in accordance with the plans of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (“CSRC”), began to take targeted poverty alleviation measures in Wushan County of Gansu Province in May 2013 and Makit County of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in July 2016 respectively, being the sole institution under the CSRC system to offer targeted assistance in poverty alleviation in two poverty-stricken counties. Up to now, SZSE has directly invested CNY 58.6 million in the two counties and guided market players to invest CNY 1.3 billion. Major progress has been made, with the incidence of poverty in Wushan County and Makit County dropping to 1.53% and 0.07% respectively and the number of impoverished people reduced by 155,000. In June 2019, Wushan County successfully passed the assessment of poverty alleviation, and Makit County will be lifted out of poverty by the end of 2019.

Consolidating the organizational foundation and exploring the “six-in-one” working mode

SZSE has always given priority to the learning and implementation of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important discourses on poverty alleviation, strengthened organizational leadership, established and given play to the institutional mechanism where the capital market serves as a platform to assist poverty alleviation, and explored a six-in-one working mode of poverty alleviation featuring planning in advance, a combination of measures, and poverty alleviation driven by party building.

SZSE has set up a leading group of targeted poverty alleviation, regularly held Party Committee meetings, board meetings and special working meetings on targeted poverty alleviation, arranged the Party Committee to study and review the annual poverty alleviation work plans at the beginning of each year, concentrated efforts in targeted poverty alleviation, and accurately determined specific projects to provide assistance. Main responsible cadres of the Party Committee took the lead to ensure that members of the Party Committee lead a team to conduct research in designated areas on a yearly basis, supervise and facilitate poverty alleviation projects, and assess the effectiveness of poverty alleviation on the spot.

SZSE also researched and formulated working systems relating to poverty alleviation such as the Administrative Measures for Poverty Alleviation Special Funds and Interim Measures for Appointment and Management of Cadres Responsible for Poverty Alleviation, to ensure that there are regulations to abide by in terms of the initiation of poverty alleviation projects, its organization and implementation, cadre appointment and fund disbursement, and to ensure that poverty alleviation is law-based and sound, and to effectively prevent risks of corruption in poverty alleviation.

Implementing poverty alleviation through the market and thoroughly carrying out poverty alleviation with the capital market

In order to implement the Opinions of the China Securities Regulatory Commission on Giving Play to the Role of the Capital Market in Serving the National Poverty Alleviation Strategy and its scheme for division of work, SZSE has organized and carried out a suite of financial measures in poverty alleviation to direct funds to support the development of poverty-stricken areas and help more impoverished people to shake off poverty and become prosperous.

SZSE has exploited its advantages as a multi-tiered capital market platform to launch the policy to open up green channels to assist enterprises in poverty-stricken areas to go public. A total of nine enterprises in such areas have been listed on SZSE and raised funds of CNY 6,153 million; moreover, SZSE has implemented the policy of issuing special corporate bonds of poverty alleviation, with 22 corporate bonds issued in poverty-stricken areas raising CNY 12.18 billion.

Focusing on information disclosure, SZSE has actively encouraged, backed and guided listed companies to fulfill their responsibility for poverty alleviation and joined efforts to serve the national strategy. In 2018, 550 SZSE-listed companies disclosed information regarding poverty alleviation in their annual reports. Funds and materials amounting to CNY 25,893 million have been invested, with the impoverished population reduced by more than 633,600. The number of companies providing poverty alleviation assistance was greatly increased, so was the investment amount and the effect of poverty alleviation.

SZSE has continued to carry out special training for enterprises in poverty-stricken areas to go public and held the seminar on “Assisting the Development of Poverty-stricken Areas with the Capital Market”. More than 210 local cadres engaged in financial work from 162 prefectural and municipal cities of 22 provinces  identified as “key counties for the national poverty alleviation and development work and the collective contiguous special poverty-stricken districts and counties” attended the seminar.

Following closely the “two no worries and three guarantees” and accurately facilitating poverty alleviation in people’s livelihood

SZSE has stayed close to the grassroots, identified the urgent needs of the poor, organized and implemented targeted poverty alleviation projects for people’s livelihood, and handled concrete matters for poverty-stricken people in a down-to-earth manner.

SZSE has invested CNY 12 million in the renovation of dilapidated buildings in Wushan County, Gansu Province, benefiting over 800 poor households and families that include disabled members. The spending of the funds was accurate, open, and transparent in all links, from household survey to fund provision.

Besides, SZSE has also invested a large number of funds in basic services of Wushan County such as healthcare and environmental protection, and donated ambulances, dialysis rooms, and garbage removal equipment, in a bid to improve local medical assistance and people’s living and housing conditions; in Makit County, CNY 1.6 million has been invested to set up 20 water purification stations, freeing more than 7,000 villagers from drinking brackish water and eradicating the problem concerning the quality of drinking water for the local. This move has shown the locals care from the Party and the country and further consolidated the foundation of national unity.

Poverty alleviation on education and ideology, and achievements in poverty alleviation on education

SZSE has done a lot of work in supporting the development of education and the popularization of mandarin in Makit County. Stepping up efforts to support education, SZSE donated CNY 1.25 million to local schools for installing multimedia teaching facility “Banbantong”, and organized excellent teachers and young employees in the mainland to give classes online, covering more than 30,000 students in 765 classes of 63 primary schools in the county. SZSE worked with member companies to fund the establishment of “Lianxinqiao” Kindergarten, organized training for teachers, and set up incentive funds to improve local elementary education environment and build a stable teaching team. SZSE updated the infrastructure of three schools and carried out training for teachers in Wushan County to increase the local teaching quality; SZSE donated CNY 150,000 to two counties respectively to build a party-mass activity center for spreading the policy of the Party and cultural knowledge, keeping contact with and serving the masses.

SZSE and Poverty Alleviation Office of the CSRC jointly held a painting and calligraphy exhibition entitled “Poverty Alleviation on Education and Ideology - Boosting the Development of Culture” in Beijing and Shenzhen, telling the stories of poverty alleviation in Wushan County and Makit County, promoting the effectiveness of poverty alleviation and inspiring future work on poverty alleviation. The exhibition was enjoyed by over 2,500 visitors.

Innovating in poverty alleviation via finance to practically increase the efficiency of precision poverty alleviation

To solve the financing problems of production and operation of SMEs and farmers in poverty-stricken areas, SZSE, together with China Construction Bank and China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation, launched two products, “Shen Yin Tong” and “Shen Nong Hui” in Wushan County, Gansu Province. For the products, SZSE provided initial capital of RMB25 million to bring nearly seven times of bank and social capital into action to support poverty alleviation. The interest rate of the two products is 1 to 3.5 percentage points lower than that of the same type of loans. Up to now, the “Shen Yin Tong” project has provided 35 loans of RMB103.10 million for 14 enterprises, which gave strong supports to local economic development; and the “Shen Nong Hui” project has granted totally 5,451 personal loans of RMB80.8 million to 344 villages in 15 towns, which offered start-up capital to the poor to get rid of poverty and get rich.

Combining “blood transfusion” and “blood forming”, and introducing industries to relieve poverty

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Only by forming endogenous power to fight poverty will the poverty-stricken areas overcome poverty forever and the results of poverty alleviation be consolidated. Regarding the introduction of industries as the fundamental solution to poverty, SZSE introduced capital and technology to the two counties to develop characteristic industries, so that the poor can continue to increase their income and gradually get out of poverty. SZSE contributed RMB8 million to creatively implement the “Tie Chu” livestock breeding project in Makit County, which helps fully play the county’s advantages of livestock breeding. In the project, the local high-quality breed “Dolan female sheep” were purchased to be assigned to competent and willing farmers to breed, and the lambs thereby will be taken as farmers’ income. So far, a total of 407 poverty-stricken households have bred 3,583 Dolan sheep, gradually walking out of poverty at home.

SZSE has actively introduced other high-quality industries to relieve poverty. Under the guidance of the CSRC, SZSE brought in RMB500 million of investments from Evergrande Group to pilot Angus beef cattle breeding in Makit County. This is estimated to bring at least RMB20 million of dividends to 140 villages across the county every year. Also, SZSE introduced leading enterprises to Wushan County to raise the quality and increase the efficiency of local agriculture. It is estimated that RMB2.37 billion will be invested in the whole industry chain project of breeding 1 million pigs and RMB20 million in the construction of fruit corn plants.

Synchronizing fixed-point poverty alleviation with team training, and building an important place for the development of cadres

SZSE has firmly taken fixed-point poverty alleviation as a starting point of cultivating the party spirit of cadres. We have regarded the targeted assisting areas as practice places of “gaining a good command of the Party constitution, Party regulations, and General Secretary Xi Jinping’s policy addresses and meeting Party standards” and education in national conditions, selected and dispatched outstanding cadres and employees to take temporary posts in poverty-stricken areas to assist in poverty alleviation, and explored to set up “Seven Ones” responsibility catalogue for cadres taking temporary posts, forming a normalized mechanism of one temporary deputy county magistrate and two assistants for poverty alleviation in each county.

Up to now, SZSE has totally assigned five cadres and 31 assistants to take temporary posts in the two counties, organized seven batches of 96 Party members and cadres to carry out poverty alleviation research and educational activities about national conditions, supported the agriculture and education in poverty-stricken counties, and raised awareness of poverty alleviation of the whole exchange. SZSE also held a poverty alleviation exchange at which six representatives shared their experience of taking temporary posts in remote areas, to inspire the patriotism of SZSE’s employees with typical stories of poverty alleviation and their hard-working spirit and entrepreneurship.

Wining the final battle against poverty is the major strategic plan of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council. SZSE will stick to the important addresses and guidance of General Secretary Xi Jinping on poverty alleviation, keep firmly in mind the need to maintain political integrity, think in big-picture terms, follow the leadership core, and keep in alignment, strengthen our confidence in the path, theory, system, and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics, resolutely uphold General Secretary Xi Jinping’s core position on the Party Central Committee and in the Party as a whole, and resolutely uphold the Party Central Committee’s authority and its centralized, unified leadership. SZSE will firmly implement the unified plans of the Party Committee of the CSRC on poverty alleviation by the capital market, target at high-efficiency poverty alleviation, put more efforts in respect of capital, talents and projects, further improve the effects of fixed-point poverty alleviation, explore and establish a long term mechanism of the capital market serving the development of poverty-stricken areas, focus on consolidating the results of poverty alleviation, and effectively make connection with the rural vitalization strategy, in a bid to make greater contributions to winning the battle against poverty and building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.