Rural poor to receive scientists

China will dispatch 18,000 scientific and technical workers annually to help poor villagers become technology-savvy in the battle against poverty.

According to a plan drafted by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, under privileged residents in remote areas or regions inhabited by minority nationalities will mainly benefit from the arrangement.

The personnel will train about 2,300 people every year and assist in the application of new technologies, so that farmers could increase their incomes and be lifted out of poverty, according to the ministry.

About 100 scientific and technological parks will be set up in poor areas to the poverty relief effort, the ministry said.

It added entities in the eastern part of the nation, which is more developed, including institutes of higher education, scientific research units, and science and technology parks in agriculture, will be encouraged to cooperate with counterparts in the west on precision poverty relief.

Xu Nanping, vice minister of science and technology, said the move aimed to mobilize the science and technology field to play its part in the fight to eliminate poverty.