In Huqiu Town, Anxi County, Quanzhou City, there stands a special building made of green containers. Beyond providing locals with low-cost high-quality auto fuel oil, it features the functions including commission sales of agricultural products, solar power generation, credit sales of agricultural means of production, medical rescue, and docking of logistics drones.
According to Ms. Liu Meizhen, who started working in this building last year, its emergence has greatly changed the lives of residents: convenient fueling, guaranteed sales of agricultural products, increased income, and better life. It is called “Happiness Station” by locals.
Its true name is “New Rural Comprehensive Service Station”, an epitome of thematic education conducted in-depth by Sinochem Oil Fujian Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Sinochem Oil Fujian”) in accordance with the requirements of “remaining true to the original aspirations, keeping its mission firmly in mind, finding the gaps, and strengthening implementation”. Since Anxi County was designated as the first pilot new rural comprehensive service station (hereinafter referred to as the “service station”) by Quanzhou Government and Sinochem Oil Fujian in March 2018, the service station has played a great role in front-line poverty alleviation and convenience services with its precise positioning.
“Small inputs” to solve “big problems”
Sinochem Oil Fujian focuses on the pain points in the front-line poverty alleviation. Sinochem Oil Fujian targets to eliminate poverty.
According to Mr. Li Jun, Secretary of Party Committee of Sinochem Oil Fujian, its mission is to actively practice the social responsibility as a central SOE and the thematic education helps local development and enhances people’s sense of access, happiness and security.
Our first step was to dissect whether the services provided meet up to targeted poverty alleviation. It took us one month to analyze the 17 villages in four townships under the jurisdiction of Anxi County, Quanzhou City, through discussions and exchanges, information reference, random visits, etc. Upon analysis and presentation, “economically backward villages” and “weak villages” mainly lack talents, capital, technology, information, and platforms, thus their collective economic income could not meet up to the standard of poverty eradication, which is the fundamental cause of not getting out of poverty.
Establishing a comprehensive service station providing financial support, employment opportunities, sales platform, and incubation space has become a poverty alleviation breakthrough of Sinochem Oil Fujian.
The first service station was officially opened in August 2018. As of August 2019, three service stations have been built in Anxi County, Quanzhou. The first one in Huqiu has operated safely for one year, with an annual sales revenue of RMB 9.6 million, and Sinochem Oil Fujian returned the station’s net profit of RMB 1.32 million to the local finance as a special fund for poverty alleviation.
Mr. Wang Xiaopeng, Secretary of Party Committee of Huqiu Town, said that there are ten “economically backward villages” and “weak villages”, including three poor villages, whose collective income could not meet up to the standard of poverty eradication, which has been fundamentally solved by the return of income of the station. All of them have met up to the standard. According to the 15-year funding plan, the problem of stably meeting up to the standard of poverty eradication could be resolved.
“The construction and operation of a service station could solve the long-standing poverty alleviation of a town, and its role has gotten instant results.”
“A small gear” to drive “a large turntable”
“If interpreting the station’s profit return as a blood transfusion mechanism, it is far from enough and is not the core value of the service station, its spreading comprehensive services are the inner driver to poverty alleviation.”
Mr. Li Jun introduced that the mission of Sinochem Oil Fujian is not to tackle the urgent issues in poverty eradication, but to eliminate poverty in the long run.
According to statistics, last year, with the existing convenience store network as the carrier, Sinochem Oil Fujian directly generated RMB 1.311 million for Pomelo and RMB 0.25 million for honey, noodles and other agricultural special products processing households.
If the service station is a gear and the full return of oil sales profits is the center shaft, then every function of the service station is a cog for turning the big turntable of poverty alleviation.
The service stations provide jobs to solve left-behind workforce, and staffs can enjoy free continuing education to further enhance their job skills. The sales channels for agricultural specialties help growers and processors to find the market. Road rescue and emergency services offer incubation conditions to specialty industries. In addition, coupling with Sinochem Agriculture MAP strategy, the service station has created a modern agricultural integrated technology service platform to provide a full range of services for local farmers, covering the whole process before, during, and after agricultural production. Besides the original agricultural production, it also renders whole-chain technical guidance, agricultural machinery services, financial insurance services, and agricultural products drying storage and even sales. Relying on modern technologies and agricultural services, the service station has been promoting agricultural development through science and technology at high-quality, cultivating new-type agricultural operators, training professional farmers in the new era, and driving the growth of large-scale agriculture to help local economic development.
“A small hub” to form “a big landscape”
The mission of the service station is to serve the “agriculture, rural areas and farmers”, aiming to achieve “industrial poverty alleviation and rural revitalization” with the local government.
According to Mr. Jiang Min, responsible person of new rural comprehensive service station project of Sinochem Oil Fujian, the service stations are designed and constructed to provide comprehensive services of banking service outlets, communications outlets, postal savings, electricity service outlets, agricultural purchase and sale centers, drones express delivery and receipt stations, convenient refueling outlets, government agents, etc. to facilitate rural residents and really enabling the last kilometer of convenient services.
The service station features a short construction cycle of one month from construction to operation and a small land area of only one to three mu. Each service station is expected to earn RMB 300,000 a year in poverty alleviation income based on the sales income of existing service stations. Sinochem Oil Fujian plans to create and build 1,000 new rural comprehensive service stations with central enterprises in Fujian, with a total annual income of up to RMB 300 million, at least to solve the long-term employment and family income problems of 3,000 poor households, aiming to win a better future and happiness for rural residents.
According to the plan, 1,000 service stations will be built in key connections in weak villages and each service station will be a hub. Relying on modern technologies and agricultural services, the service station has been promoting agricultural development through science and technology at high-quality, cultivating new-type agricultural operators, and training professional farmers in the new era, thus incorporating weak villages across the province into a large-scale modern agricultural network.
General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that we should unswervingly deepen the rural reform, speed up rural development, maintain rural harmony and stability, and putting solving the problems related to “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” the top priority of the work of the Party. We must keep these requirements in mind and practice. While being firmly rooted in the heart of all Sinochem Oil Fujian staffs, the thematic education should be transformed into concrete actions, echoing the ardent call of the central government from the most practical pain points of farmers.
Ms. Liu Meizhen has never expected that this small service station could change the lives of many idle peasants like her. She often stands in front of it and smile towards the end of the road, as if she could see the bright future she have not expected.