Better Life head stresses private firms' rural role

He also called for joint efforts to expand the cooperation scope by rural collective economic organizations and private enterprises, develop the mixed economy in rural areas, further optimize the allocation of rural resources and guide more private enterprises to take part in rural revitalization.

Established in 1995 in Hunan province, Better Life has become a retail conglomerate covering supermarkets, convenience stores, shopping centers, commercial complexes, logistics and transportation. It operates over 700 brick-and-mortar stores nationwide.

Rural revitalization is a critical way to help achieve common prosperity, said Wei Houkai, head of the Rural Development Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Wei said the key to promoting all-round rural revitalization lies in stimulating the indigenous vitality of rural areas, establishing a modern rural industrial system with distinctive and competitive features, and building a mechanism to increase the income of farmers.

Despite the unprecedented impact brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, China has accomplished its poverty alleviation target on schedule. The final 98.99 million impoverished rural residents have all been lifted out of poverty, and all 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 villages have been removed from the poverty list by the end of 2020.

In addition, Long Haibo, a senior researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council, the nation's Cabinet, said digital technologies, including 5G, artificial intelligence and cloud computing, are playing an increasingly important part in bridging the digital divide in rural areas, empowering the healthcare and education industries, and promoting the rural-urban economic integration and rural revitalization.