A stationery store owner in Pingtan recently made newspaper headlines for getting over a financial hump with the help of a free-interest loan from local government.

Lin Aiqin runs a stationery store in Baiqing township, Pingtan county. [Photo/pingtan.gov.cn]

Lin Aiqin was so emotional reminiscing how she started from scratch that she even choked a few times during the interview with Pingtan Times on Sept 20.

“I was a substitute teacher after graduation from high school. Then I got laid off after the school was merged (with another one). My husband was debt-ridden following a series of failed businesses. And we had two daughters to raise. So imagine how difficult it was at that time,” she said.

With the help of her relatives, Lin opened a 20-sq-m stationery store in Baiqing township. But the family could barely get it going because she lacked funds to replenish inventories in order to appeal to more customers.

Staff with the local family planning office of the township, after learning of Lin’s predicament this year, offered to apply for a 10,000-yuan ($1,600) interest-free loan through a charity loan program called “Happiness Project” launched by Pingtan’s government authorities to help those in need.

“It was like fuel in snowy weather,” said Lin. “I was able to expand the scale of the store and business became much more robust as a result.”

Lin said she planned to transform the stationery store to a convenience store to increase the customer flow and provide a better life for her daughters – one in Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the other at local middle school.

“It is all worth it,” she said. “My daughters are my pride.”