The poverty alleviation office of Chengde said that the city will strive for a total sum of 2 billion yuan ($3.26 billion) in investment to help 100,000 poor people escape poverty this year.

The office will attach more importance to investing in projects and industry to increase incomes. To guarantee that every poor household has a steadily growing income, Chengde will focus on increasing the investment in poverty alleviation, including building leading enterprises and production bases and providing loans for businesses.

In addition, the investment will also function as money for infrastructure construction and loans to enterprises and farmers.

A "grassroots bank" network will help loan out a total of 400 million yuan.

With regards to industry, the government will support the development of economic forests in 400 poor villages. The poverty relief investment for the fruit industry in those 400 villages has reached 34.25 million yuan ($5.58 million), taking up 45.91 percent of the first poverty relief investment this year. The money will be used to plant 1.4 million fruit trees in 165 poor villages. A total of 183,000 chickens and 4,200 boxes of bees will be raised in the forests of fruit trees. Herbs for TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) will also be planted. The total investment for the supporting facility, including roads, is more than 10 million yuan. The fruit tree forest project will help 15,000 poor families increase their income.

The poverty alleviation investment will also aid industries like fresh produce, TCM and meat-packing. Every county has a main industry to develop its economy. Small-size production projects with investment between 30,000 to 100,000 yuan will be given priority in poverty alleviation projects. These projects are expected to transform villages into raw material suppliers for leading enterprises. The leading enterprises will also gain support from the government in poverty alleviation projects. The development of leading enterprises will benefit poor villages, which will become raw material providers of these enterprises.