All Hands on Deck: Winning the Battle Against Poverty

ON the morning of May 18, Zheng Chuanjiu, a deputy of Guizhou Province to the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC), left his hometown Zheng’an County in Zunyi City for Guiyang, the provincial capital, where he joined up with the province’s delegation who were leaving for Beijing to participate in the annual “Two Sessions” (the third session of the 13th National People’s Congress and the third session of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference).

- Staff reporter MA LI

Zheng is also the general manager of Zunyi Shenqu Musical Instruments Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Before starting his journey to Beijing, he stopped by his company’s workshop located in the county’s economic development zone to check up on the guitar shipments for the day. He then wrote in his WeChat’s Moments, “Thank you, my country. Even though the pandemic is so serious, we can still ship goods to countries around the world every week.”

Industry Drives Poverty Alleviation

Zheng’an County is located in the depths of mountains in Zunyi City and is China’s largest guitar production base. It is home to 27 well-known guitar manufacturers who have a total annual output of 6 million guitars. These products are exported to more than 30 countries and regions around the world.

The guitar production in the county resumed work in early March, but then towards the end of March, 30 enterprises in the industrial park faced a risk of shutdown. With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, most of the overseas purchasers who had not canceled their orders had requested that their shipments be postponed indefinitely, putting these guitar manufacturers in a dilemma. “If the shipments are postponed for three months, we will have a backlog of 150,000 guitars, which will tie up a large sum of working capital. Without working cash, our business will collapse,” said Zheng.