BEIJING, June 11 (Xinhua) -- China will continue to optimize collaboration and pairing assistance between its eastern and western regions, ensuring full coverage of the pairing assistance program, an official said at a press conference on Thursday.
A technician (2nd R) trains locally recruited agricultural workers at a smart workshop for plant cultivation in Aksu, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, June 25, 2025. (File photo: Xinhua)
For three decades, China has implemented the pairing assistance program, a move that matches its more affluent eastern provinces and municipalities with less-developed western regions, delivering financial, technical and human resource support to foster more balanced national development.
Since its roll-out in 1996, this cross-regional partnership has played a vital role in the country's winning the battle against poverty as well as consolidating and expanding the achievements, according to Maierdan Mugaiti, vice minister of agriculture and rural affairs.
Through the program, enterprises were guided to invest over 750 billion yuan (about 110 billion U.S. dollars) in western regions between 2021 and 2025, boosting the development of local industrial clusters, according to the ministry.
The program has also helped support employment, facilitating employment for more than 5 million rural workers from western regions during the same period.
The eastern regions have also ramped up their procurement of specialty agricultural products from western regions, with eastern partner regions purchasing or assisting in the sales of agricultural products valued at nearly 570 billion yuan from western regions during the period.
Looking ahead, the vice minister noted that the ministry will maintain overall policy stability and sustained support. He added that greater emphasis will be placed on leveraging the complementary strengths of different regions to foster shared development, providing strong backing for consolidating and expanding poverty alleviation achievements, advancing all-around rural revitalization and promoting coordinated regional development.