Guizhou province has launched ecological migration projects for two years to alleviate poverty.

With 4.93 billion yuan ($789.1 million) put into this project, 302 ecological resettlements and 59,000 houses have been completed, and as many as 250,000 people have moved out.

The project started early in May 2012, aiming at relocating 204,000 rural population in remote and poverty-stricken areas to developed areas to improve their living conditions. The project will be completed step by step during the eight-year period, from 2012 to 2020.

The Guizhou provincial government has made a detailed plan to guide project implementation based on previous experiences of relocation and post-disaster reconstruction, as well as the migrants’ wills. According to statistics, from 2012 to 2013, 250,000 ecological migrants moved out. Based on the requirements, the governments of the resettled areas have taken a series of measures to ensure migrants get employed and to encourage them to join the social security system.

So far, 84,700 people were employed after relocation, while 55,800 migrants have taken part in the rural endowment insurance. A total of 27,300 have gotten a rural minimum subsistence guarantee. In 2013, the per capita net income of migrant families reached 5,732 yuan.

The relocation project has largely improved migrant living conditions and opened more job opportunities for them. The project has also curbed the deterioration of the ecological environment and restored and protected the environment.