Combination photo shows an old house in Nancao Village of Jiazhuang Township, Shuocheng District, Shuozhou, north China's Shanxi Province (top, undated file photo); and a villager hanging laundry in front of her house which has been renovated with government funds in the same village (bottom, photo taken on July 7, 2020 by Cao Yang). Nancao Village has funded over 200 impoverished households to renovate their once dilapidated houses. The recent poverty relief efforts by Shanxi Province include: make road networks access to rural villages, relocate rural residents to better housing, afforest barren lands with green trees, and stimulate employment by developing tourism. Without these, the province's many plateau and mountain villages would have remained impoverished due to lack of decent roads and arable lands, plus the ensuing loss of labour force and industrial diversity. By February 2020, a total of 7,993 villages in all of the 58 impoverished counties in Shanxi have shaken off poverty, with the incidence of poverty dropping to less than 0.1 percent. [Photo/Xinhua]