Ping An Insurance（Group）Company of China, Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Ping An") ranks among Fortune's top 29 global enterprises and holds the first place in the world insurance, has shifted in poverty alleviation from the traditional "blood transfusion" to the innovative "hematopoiesis" with its focus on "wisdom poverty alleviation". Over the years, it has achieved "industrial hematopoiesis, health protection, education and public welfare". Especially in early 2018, on its 30th anniversary, "village officials, village doctors, and village education" were officially launched as core projects of its overall poverty alleviation plan.
From Poverty Alleviation to Local Economic Incubator
By "Industry Poverty Alleviation" powered by finance, Ping An launched its compassionate innovation. He integrated insurance, banking, fund, science and technology, investment and other financial services to build "four beams and eight pillars" in financial poverty alleviation. Ping An incorporated industrial poverty alleviation into the long-term development strategic plan of "financial institutions serving real economy" to truly achieve sustainability and replication of poverty alleviation. "By helping the poor through industry, Ping An changed itself from poverty eliminator to the incubator of the local economy, thus realizing the organic combination of the social responsibility of helping the poor and their own development. Ping An finds and activate, and cultivate resources and rebuild the competitiveness of commercial banks by constructing local characteristic industrial chains.
Ping An's many poverty alleviation measures like "teaching people to fish" were awarded the 2018 Targeted Poverty Alleviation Case Award for Chinese Listed Companies. In addition, Ping An won "2018 China Innovative Enterprises" in the 30th China Economic News Award organized by the China Economic Media Association. In 2019, Ping An’s hydro power poverty alleviation model was acclaimed by International Small Hydro power Center of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization as a model of international poverty alleviation, which was widely publicized in the International Small Hydro power Development Report. With the involvement of more industrial and financial capital, Ping An is becoming a model for the insurance industry to participate in targeted poverty alleviation.
"Haematopoiesis" Hydropower
In early 2018, Ping An launched the project of "village officials, village doctors, and village education" to create "industrial, medical and educational poverty alleviation". The "village officials " project provided nearly 100 billion yuan of industrial poverty alleviation loans, and developed a variety of financial poverty alleviation products such as farming loans, planting loans, water and electricity loans, poverty alleviation government bonds, and poverty alleviation enterprise bonds, closely combining bank funds, government poverty alleviation projects, and characteristic enterprises with local poor households.
In other words, industrial poverty alleviation is to provide "industrial poverty alleviation loans with preferential interest rate" to high-quality core industries. Enterprises, as the core project implementer, help poor households to increase their income steadily while promoting local industries, leading a way out of poverty through sustainable development. By the beginning of 2019, the project has benefited more than 90 poor counties in Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, Jiangxi, Sichuan Provinces and established records for more than 100,000 poor households.
This "Haematopoiesis" poverty alleviation, especially hydro poverty alleviation is becoming more and more mature with its own characteristics. At present, among 832 poor counties in the country, more than 700 counties have abundant water resources. Ping An has cooperated with 6 hydro power and the projects cover the Yangtze River and Pearl River areas, with a capital investment of 2.8 billion yuan, benefiting more than 100,000 recorded poor households. The ecological circle "infrastructure, energy supply, empowerment and hematopoiesis" was established. Hydro power construction provides energy for local secondary and tertiary industries. Villagers have funds and sale channels for agricultural products. They can also obtain a steady stream of dividends and sales income through continuous upgrading of production skills, giving full play to their role as leaders in rural development.
Zhaoheng Hydro power Co.,Ltd. has more than 100 small Hydro power stations in China. Ping An provides Zhaoheng with loans with favorable interest rates, allowing the company to use the funds to build Hydro power stations in rural areas and compensate relocated households. The average loan interest rate is more than 7%, but Ping An only charges about 2 or 3 per mil. The difference in the interest rate is converted into the shares of poor households in the hydro power plant, with a guaranteed subsidy of more than 4,000 yuan per year for at least 15 years.
"China's poor farmers have been lifted out of poverty with an annual income of more than 4,000 yuan." Yao Pinggui, former vice president of Ping An and now chairman of Ping An Trust, who has dedicated 40 years to the banking sector, speaks of this story with gratified glory on his face:"After this model was first reported, more than 100 websites all broadcast the news, and the United Nations sent people to hold forums on the model. Later, the United Nations also specially published a book every year with the case collected in it."
Intelligent Poverty Alleviation through Production and Marketing
Noteworthy, the poverty alleviation projects need not mortgage or guarantee. They are managed by local industries with advanced technology to assist poor peasants in production and marketing. "In the past, poverty alleviation was done by giving money directly to farmers. In fact, the problem of poverty was not fundamentally solved. Poverty was largely caused by ‘ignorance’. Therefore, how to inspire wisdom is the most important thing in poverty alleviation."Yao Pinggui said.
Take chicken raising as an example. The loan is not directly given to chicken farmers, but to the feed factory. The amount of feed each chicken needs to eat every day is calculated, and the according amount of money is remitted to the factory that would provide the according amount of feed to farmers.
In addition, Ping An would install electricity meters, water meters and intelligent cameras in chicken houses to ensure that the water and electricity consumption is normal. The growth information of chickens is uploaded to the company in Silicon Valley for multidimensional analysis. How many steps a chicken walks, which chicken is sick, what disease does it have, and what medicine should be administered at fixed points and at regular intervals are all processed. Improvement measures will be accordingly proposed. Through big data, fine management regarding the growth of chickens and their market price is achieved.
The sales pipeline is included in the one-stop service. Poor peasants sell chickens to the processing plant that would deduce feed costs and return the surplus money to the feed factory. The whole production and marketing process is a closed loop. Farmers do not need to pay a penny, but they can make profits steadily in the end. With a chicken's profit of about 2 or 3 yuan, 10,000 chickens have an income of 20,000 or 30,000 yuan.
The Harmonious Symbiosis of Commercial Income, Poverty Alleviation and Public Welfare
From many reports, we know that Ping An has implemented a coordinated production and marketing model in many poverty alleviation cases with the aid of Internet, big data, artificial intelligence. For example, Yinshan Oats, an enterprise in Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia, China received 30 million interest-free loans and has to file and grow raw materials for 1,087 poor households and make targeted purchases from them, which improved an annual per capita income of 3,700 yuan for these households.
In Ningxia, Zhongning County, a famous Chinese wolfberry producing area in the country, and Tongxin County, which is rich in straw resources and suitable for husbandry, with "Ping An Agricultural Products Traceable Management System" and "Three Villages with Treasures", agricultural products reached a larger customer base from remote lands.
Poverty and disease stand side by side. If industry is the foundation to stimulate villagers' self-reliance, then health is the guarantee to shake off poverty and education means the hope for the future. In Ping An’s "Three Village Construction Project" with an investment of 10 billion yuan, advanced technology has also been applied to "village doctors" and "village education". With the information platforms, rural and urban areas can communicate with each other remotely. "Intelligent education" and "Intelligent medicine" are introduced into the villages through “famous doctors to the countryside”, Internet classes, teacher training, village doctors APP, and distance training.
In Ping An’s intelligent poverty alleviation, with economic and technological measures and carefully planned operations, it has circumnavigated many obstacles in old modes and replenished development ammunition for poor areas with grass-roots participation in economy construction. Ping An has created a four-win situation for poor households, government, enterprises and banks and is battling poverty step by step. With the harmonious and symbiotic model of commercial income, poverty alleviation and public welfare, Ping An is indeed a good example of the economy of Goodness.
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