Guang'an in eastern Sichuan province has vowed to lift more than 280,000 people out of poverty by 2018, a senior official said.

Hou Xiaochun, Party chief of Guang'an, made the comment in Beijing while attending the annual session of the National People's Congress.

Guang'an is best known as the birthplace of the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping who lived there for 15 years before attending a preparatory course in neighboring Chongqing in 1919 before studying in France the next year.

All of its two districts, three counties and one city are mountainous. Statistics compiled in 2015 found that 283,000 people were below the poverty line set at an annual income of 2,300 yuan ($354).

The Guang'an municipal government has resorted to building roads, planting cash crops and developing rural tourism to help farmers.

Luziyan is a village at the junction of Wusheng and Yuechi，two counties under the administration of Guang'an.

Because it had no road leading to the outside, fruits such as the plum had to rot in the fields and fresh vegetables would be used to feed pigs.

"The Guang'an municipal government has invested money to build a road 5.2 kilometers long to link our village to the outside. Now fruits and vegetables can be sold outside," said Zhang Chunlai, a local resident who makes a living by planting fruit trees.

"It has led villagers to build more than 15,000 pear and more than 10,000 sweet orange trees. More than 200 villagers can find jobs at home instead of working as migrant workers," he said.

Lei Changyuan, a 63-year-old farmer in Qujiadian village in Yuechi, is handicapped because one of his legs was injured when he was young. His wife broke one of her legs and can only do housework.

The couple used to be very poor because they had to rely solely on their fields to eke out a living.

With the help of local officials in charge of poverty alleviation, they received an assistance of some 2,000 yuan to buy chickens, ducks and rabbits. The officials also arranged technicians to offer the Leis technical guidance in raising the domestic animals. By selling ducks and rabbits, the couple has made a profit of nearly 4,000 yuan.

Villages in Guang'an have beautiful natural scenery. Decision-makers in the city plan to turn 30 percent of its poor villages into rural tourism destinations to raise villagers' incomes.