Chenzhou, located in the south of Hunan, is close to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and is a major labour export city. In 2022, Chenzhou’s 1,106,400 rural people went out to work, and a total of more than 24,000 people returned to their hometowns to start businesses.

 

A local official said, “We hope that through the award support, we can guide the majority of talent to bring industries, funds, projects and technologies to the countryside and promote them to thousands of households.”

 

In recent years, Chenzhou has comprehensively implemented the strategy of “invigorating Chenzhou through talents”, formulated 52 new policies and various measures for talents, built a platform to gather and support the factors of rural revitalization, vigorously carried out activities to attract more natives back for investment, organized the selection of the “Top Ten Return Innovation and Entrepreneurship Talent” and “Top Ten Rural Master Craftsman Workshops”. It has achieved good results and formed a strong atmosphere in helping rural revitalization and promoting high-quality development of the county economy.

 

Recently, Chenzhou has once again formulated and released the “Several Measures for Chenzhou City to Support Returning Hometown for Innovation and Entrepreneurship to Promote Rural Revitalization and High-quality Development of the County Economy”, which puts forward 15 flexible and feasible measures in such aspects as talent, capital, resources, and business environment optimization and care for talent.

 

Innovation and entrepreneurship can’t be possible without financial support. In addition to the above incentives, Chenzhou has actively guided financial institutions to develop financial products to support innovation and entrepreneurship in the rural areas.

 

For example, the Chenzhou Branch of China Construction Bank has launched an innovative “Rural Revitalization Shared Loan”, with a maximum loan amount of 5 million yuan for those who return to the countryside for innovation and entrepreneurship. It has also launched an entrepreneurship guarantee loan and discount policy, which allows eligible individual entrepreneurs and small and micro enterprises to apply for up to 200,000 yuan and 3 million yuan respectively, with the government discount interest for 3 years and 2 years.

 

Apart from financial support, Chenzhou has also provided various kinds of intellectual support for rural entrepreneurship. Every year, no less than 500 experts and talents are dispatched to provide services in rural areas, and more than 1,500 rural teachers and 100 rural doctors are trained.

 

In addition, about 3,000 modern farmers are trained, 100 outstanding rural practical talents are selected with each given a reward of 10,000 yuan. The plan of “one college graduate serve as a village cadre” and the village cadre training program are implemented.

 

On the same day, 22 projects in Chenzhou were also released on the conference, covering five categories, which are agricultural park, agricultural-tourism integration, agricultural products processing, agribusiness and breeding industry.