Prosperity comes with pencils and rice

In just five years, the village had paid off all its debt and accumulated a surplus of 60,000 yuan.

Now, after 40 years of development, the village's pencil industry is developing and expanding quickly. Its annual pencil output reached 2.3 billion units, accounting for 20 percent of the national total, and the products have been exported to more than 20 countries, including Russia, Japan and Germany.

The pencil industry has become a pillar in Yuanbao, which calls itself China's hometown of pencils. The village has a population of just 1,870, but in 2019, its total assets had reached 730 million yuan ($111 million). Annual per capita income was 32,000 yuan according to Zhang Baojin, Party chief of the village.

Since 2012, the village has been comprehensively upgrading traditional agriculture and built a high-quality rice-planting park in which a high-quality, high-end rice varieties have been successfully cultivated.