Roads made ready for rural revitalization in Tianjin

Village roads are undergoing a massive refurbishment program in order to help alleviate poverty and boost rural revitalization in Tianjin, officials said at a news conference on Monday.

Liu Daogang, deputy director of Tianjin Municipal Transportation Commission, said that roads are a 'forerunner infrastructure' for developing the economy and play an important role in lifting less-developed rural areas out of poverty.

Based on on-the-spot research, the local government has reconstructed over 740 kilometers of roads in its thousand villages over the last three years.

In view of the high cost of road rebuilding, the municipal government has doubled subsidies to 300,000 yuan/km ($42,916/km). To date, a total of 220 million yuan in subsidies has been arranged.

More convenient and better roads are conducive to generating internal growth momentum for rural development, Liu said. Villages are more connected to the outside, which make it easier for products to go out and for services and investment to go in.

With the newly-built roads, people can now easily go to Mutouwo, a village endowed with abundant natural beauty, to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life. The village is developing rural tourism, offering the joys of fishing, shrimping, and jogging, with birds singing in the reeds.