Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang on tour to poor areas
Leaders bring gifts as well as have chats with the disadvantaged in visits to Gansu, Inner Mongolia
Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping and premier-in-waiting Li Keqiang visited respectively poor farmers in northwestern Gansu and struggling migrant workers in Inner Mongolia yesterday, a week ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.
"Life was equally arduous when I was living in the northern part of Shaanxi province more than four decades ago," Xinhua quoted Xi as saying during his trip to Weiyuan county in Gansu's Dingxi city, one of the poorest areas in the nation.
"The living standards [in Shaanxi] have since improved. We, the party and the government, will care for you and help you. So let's jointly strive for better and more prosperous days in the years to come."
Xi reportedly came bearing gifts for the nearly 450 households in the village. Noodles, cooking oil, pork, sweets, melon seeds and cotton-padded quilts were among the items distributed to each household.
Dingxi often suffers from drought and is well known as an underdeveloped area where farmers earn not more than 2,000 yuan (HK$2,460) a year. As a result, tens of thousands of local farmers have left to become migrant workers, earning annual wages of about 10,000 yuan, official figures show.
Li yesterday also went to a railway station in Baotou , Inner Mongolia, where he met migrant workers who were heading home for the Lunar New Year.