A county in southwest China's Guizhou Province has livestreamed to the world a decision-making meeting of local officials on poverty alleviation, sharing its experience with other countries.

The meeting on the production and sales of chayote, a kind of gourd imported from South America that has become a local cash cow, was held on Tuesday by the Standing Committee of the Huishui County Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

"I propose expanding the chayote plantation area, and advise increasing facilities for cold-chain storage," said Wang Zhangmo, deputy head of Huishui County.

He also said that the gourd processing facilities should be added to extend the industrial chain.

Wang Decheng, another deputy head of the county, agreed and advised expanding the plantation area by 1,000 hectares, judging from the market situation.

"Some 13,000 tonnes of the gourds produced in Huishui have been sold to Guangdong this year," said Wang Decheng, an exchange official from Nansha District of south China's Guangzhou City.

Nearly 3,500 hectares of chayote has been planted in the county this year, with the output expected to exceed 150,000 tonnes.

The county has become a vegetable production base for Shanghai and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, according to the meeting.

Located on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, Huishui used to be an impoverished county and home to 82,000 poverty-stricken residents. By developing industries such as chayote and passion fruit plantations, the county shook off poverty last year.

Wan Qinghua, secretary of the CPC Huishui County Committee, said at the meeting that although the county was no longer listed as poor, poverty alleviation work remained important considering the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic and floods this year.

"Targeted measures should be implemented to ensure that the entire county will complete the tasks of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by the end of this year," said Wan.

Their discussion was watched online by more than 200 politicians from 16 Latin American countries.

Pedro Miguel Gonzalez, secretary-general of Panama's Democratic Revolutionary Party, said that all the decisions made during the meeting were based on discussion and thorough investigations of members from different fields.

"This could serve as an example of the democratic decision-making process of the CPC, and perfectly answers why China was able to make such great development achievements," he said.

The livestreaming event was organized by the International Department of the Central Committee of the CPC and the provincial authorities.

Over the past seven years, Guizhou has changed from a province with the most impoverished population to one that lifted the largest number of people out of poverty in China. The impoverished population was reduced from 9.23 million to 308,300, with the poverty rate dropping from 26.8 percent to 0.85 percent during this period. 

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