State-owned enterprises (SOEs) under Beijing's administration purchased over 800 million yuan (US$113.67 million) worth of agricultural products and byproducts from 73 nationally designated poor counties in five provinces and autonomous regions this year, lifting over 20,000 people out of poverty.
The statistics was recently released by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) of People's Government of Beijing Municipality and Beijing's leading group office of poverty alleviation cooperation at a meeting on alleviating poverty through consumer spending.
According to officials at the meeting, the SOEs are required to source 30% of their agricultural purchases from poor areas, and they should also give priority to poor areas in the procurement of property services and union welfare.
In August, Beijing issued a notice on alleviating poverty through consumer spending, making it the guidebook for procurement by SOEs. In addition, Beijing's SASAC also made poverty alleviation a performance indicator for the head of its SOEs.
As of November, SOEs under Beijing's administration had invested about 22.93 billion yuan through 200 projects in various provinces and autonomous regions in China, including 2.42 billion yuan invested this year. The planned total investment is approximately 36.88 billion yuan.
