24 Guizhou special Tuesday, March 7, 2017 CHINA DAILY Meeting SW China’s rising medical tech requirements

By SONG MENGXING and YANG JUN Charming idyllic view in rural areas in Southwest China’s Fanjing Mountain, a national nature reserve in Tongren, Guizhou An improved transport network, including high-speed railways, Guizhou province. province, is a popular travel destination. has made Guizhou an easier place to visit. Angela Wong from Hong Kong once planned to visit Huangguoshu Waterfall in Guizhou province dur- ing the 1970s, but she changed her mind after hearing someone say that the province in Southwest China was E-commerce fights against poverty unsafe. But more than three decades later, against all expectations, her career has taken off in the region she previously Yanhe govt focuses feared. Now she operates a medical examination center in Guizhou and on technology to has come to appreciate the region’s environment and development. drive county-wide Wong said that she traveled to Huangguoshu Waterfall three times development, last year and has seen the rainbow it Yang Jun and creates in the mornings. “It is more beautiful than Niagara Falls, espe- Hao Nan report. cially the Water Curtain Cave. It’s so astonishing!” she said. Wong said the environment is well he Yanhe government protected in Guizhou. She suggested expects to remove the that tourists make the trip to the county in Guizhou prov- waterfall in spring and autumn, as ince from the list of nation- that is a particularly special time to Tal-level poverty-stricken areas by visit. developing its e-commerce industry environment. A returnee entrepreneur According to historical records, She returned to China in 2005, after Yanhe served as an important com- working with GlaxoSmithKline in mercial center during the Tang the United States for nearly 20 years. Dynasty (618-907), thronging with At the invitation of one of her close merchants in the middle and lower friends, Wong went to Guizhou in reaches of Wujiang River, the lon- 2015, focusing on medical examina- gest tributary on the southern bank tion and setting up the medical exam- of Yangtze River’s upper reach. ination center. However, the tide changed with Villagers celebrate the local plum festival in Nanzhuang village, Yanhe, Guizhou province. PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY “We mainly have a complementary the rise of land transportation relationship with hospitals, providing and a newly established hydraulic on-year increase of 31.14 percent. them with examination and quaran- power station that cut-off the Wuji- Online retail transactions contrib- tine services,” Wong said. ang waterway. The county lost its 129.18 uted 56.83 billion yuan, a 33.56 per- Her center offers these services advantage in water transportation cent year-on-year increase. based on samples collected by hos- and gradually fell behind in terms billion yuan Currently, the province has more pitals. Doctors use test data supplied of economic development. Guizhou’s e-commerce than 50,000 e-commerce companies by the center to make a diagnosis Many of its characteristic farm trade volume from January and online stores, 60 county-level and prescribe treatments for patients. products, such as plums, goat meat, to November 2016 e-commerce service centers and Wong said her center is the first labo- peanuts and tea, are hardly known 6,950 service stations in rural areas. ratory in the provincial capital Gui- to the outside world, partly because It also signed strategic cooperation yang that can screen newborns’ plan- of the lack of channels by which to agreements with several e-business tar blood for metabolic and genetic export them. packaging and marketing planning, giants, including Alibaba, online disorders. But, the region is now experienc- could also create many job opportu- retailer JD and Suning Commerce “With just a drop of plantar blood ing a turnaround. nities, Wu said. Group. from newborns, we can diagnose Ran Azhou, a local pioneer In 2015, nearly 810,000 young “The number of Guizhou’s e-com- more than 30 congenital metabolic engaged in e-commerce, said the people came back to Guizhou to merce service stations will reach diseases, infectious diseases and other emerging e-commerce industry has find jobs and start their own busi- 10,000 at the end of this year, and potential problems caused by gene changed local people’s traditional Ran Azhou (right), a pioneer engaged in e-commerce in Yanhe, helps to sell nesses, a year-on-year increase of the province’s online retail turn- defects,” Wong said. marketing models and has brought local farmers’ agricultural products through his e-commerce company. 30.86 percent. over is supposed to exceed 80 bil- She said the screening can help Yanhe’s rural areas into closer con- The Guizhou provincial govern- lion yuan at the same time. The to reduce parents’ anxiety and pro- tact with the world outside. ment has launched a spring cam- industry’s trade volume is expected vide China’s less developed western Ran demonstrated his commerce company’s sales volume reached 1.2 By the end of 2016, Yanhe had paign to intensify the poverty- alle- to exceed 200 billion yuan in 2017 regions with access to cutting-edge talents when he studied at Guizhou million yuan ($174,575) in the first more than 30 e-commerce compa- viation effort. and 360 billion yuan in 2020, the medical services. Normal University. He opened a year,” he said. nies providing online retail services. Guizhou provincial Party chief last year for the 13th Five-Year Plan “I chose Guizhou mainly because I snack shop in his dormitory build- In 2015, Yanhe had a good harvest Last year, the industry’s total trade Chen Min’er said the province would (2016-20),” said Shen Xinguo, depu- noticed the gap of precision medicine ing and bought his first car in his of pomeloes, with a total output of volume in the county exceeded 300 continue to deepen the implementa- ty head of the province’s Commerce in Southwest China,” Wong said, add- senior year. more than 50,000 kilograms. In only million yuan. Of this, more than 2.9 tion of President Xi Jinping’s guid- Department. ing that currently there are no compa- When he was about to graduate two weeks, Ran’s company sold all of million yuan was created on Singles ing strategy with regard to efficient However, the future development nies in the region that deal with high- in 2014, Ran heard that the Yanhe the pomeloes, helping local farmers Day, an online shopping day on Nov poverty alleviation, in a bid to make of Guizhou’s electronic business will end examination and quarantine, and county government had decided to double their incomes. 11 launched by Tmall — Alibaba further steady headway in promot- not be plain sailing. offer precision medicine services. to promote characteristically local “Although there are many chal- Group’s business-to-consumer plat- ing the province’s anti-poverty proj- “The biggest problem is the lack She said her center filled this gap products. He said he knew that a lenges in developing electronic busi- form. ects. of talented people in the industry. and would have great market oppor- great opportunity was coming. nesses in Yanhe, I felt a great sense “The internet and e-commerce E-commerce, one of the aspects of Transportation infrastructure in tunities in the future. Ran returned to Yanhe after grad- of accomplishment when I saw local environment help to make return- the anti-poverty projects, is visibly rural areas also needs improvement In terms of precision medicine, uating and founded an e-commerce farmers’ agricultural products sell ing home an attractive idea,” said taking off across the province. to lower logistics costs,” Shen said. China’s market share is less than one company in November 2014 to sell out through my company. These Wu Zhaohui, deputy director of Last year’s official statistics show tenth of the US’, Wong said, adding local specialties. products used to be unsellable due the e-commerce development that e-commerce trade volume in Contact the writers at yangjun@ that China has a bigger population “Our best-selling products include to the lack of market channels and office in Guizhou’s Tongren city. Guizhou reached 129.18 billion yuan chinadaily.com.cn and haonan@ than the US and she believes there honey, pomeloes and dried beef. The information,” the 25-year-old said. Related sectors, such as logistics, from January to November, a year- chinadaily.com.cn is significant room for development. Wong said that after the high-speed railways connecting Guiyang to some other cities in western China officially open, it will only take two to three hours to travel from Guiyang to cit- Anshun fortified village drives regional tourism efforts ies such as Chongqing and Chengdu, which will make it far easier to trans- By LI FUSHENG and YANG JUN port samples. ing facial features and decorations. Zeng said, “The move will help She said the Guiyang government If one wants to learn about how A big fan of the opera, Qin raised farmers to increase their revenue has supported efforts to attract pro- Han Chinese people lived 600 years 5 million yuan ($729,100) and built and offer visitors another enjoyable fessionals. The authorities offered ago, one of the best places for field Anshun’s first museum dedicated sight.” Wong’s center a 4,000-square-meter trips is a village in Southwest China’s to the opera masks in 2016. Each As the integration deepens, local office area, with free rent in the first Guizhou province. month, it attracts more than 1,000 authorities are scaling up their three years and half rent in the fourth Located in Pingba county, in visitors from around the world. investment in the destination’s and fifth years. Southwest China’s Guizhou prov- “The museum serves as a place facilities. Wong’s key team members are all ince, the origins of Anshun’s Tian- for people to learn about the opera, Zhu Guiyun, a deputy Party sec- doctors who have more than 10 years’ long Tunpu village can be traced which helps them to deepen their retary of Anshun, said the expen- work experience in large pharmaceu- back to the early Ming Dynasty understanding of Tunpu culture,” diture on Huangguoshu and Loong tical companies. Wong said her com- (1368-1644). The inhabitants of the he said. Palace totaled 1.13 billion yuan in pany also boasts advanced devices, so village are descendants of ethnic One thing that Qin did not expect, 2016. through examination, it can inform Han soldiers who manned a gar- but is glad to see, is that his move The authorities are also building testers of the risk of cancer and other rison in the area. has generated opportunities for his a 350 million yuan wetland garden diseases, and assist in early preven- Even today locals speak a dia- neighbors. Four of them are running within the 115-square-kilometer tion. lect that is closely related to that of hostels to accommodate visitors. Huangguoshu zone. When com- Nanjing, Jiangsu province, a former Qin said he hopes more people pleted, it will connect four parts of Contact the writers through song- Ming Dynasty capital. will become involved, to offer better Qin Fazhong works on a mask sculpture. YANG JUN / CHINA DAILY the zone and offer visitors yet more [email protected] The village is home to Di opera, or accommodation and thus improve scenic escapes. ground opera. It is performed with the local tourism industry. The first phase of the project has wooden masks, which are believed In August 2016, local authorities the Huangguoshu scenic zone, said been completed, with the garden to show respect to gods and help Rejuvenated tourism industry integrated the three sites into a the newly integrated destination receiving a national-level rating in dispel evil. Officials recognized the His wish is precisely what the larger tourist destination called the received 12.34 million visitors from January. opera as a cultural heritage item local tourism authorities are work- Huangguoshu Scenic Zone, because home and abroad in 2016, represent- “Focusing on building an integrat- in 2006. ing to achieve through a plan based of the waterfall’s fame, management ing 47 percent growth year-on-year. ed scenic zone, Anshun is becoming “Masks are essential to the ground on three well-known local places of experience, well-developed facilities The tourists generated revenues a pioneer in the province’s tourism opera and it is the core of Tunpu interest. and professional services. of 12.15 billion yuan in the year, up development pattern. We will work culture,” said Qin Fazhong, a native One is Tunpu and the other two The move creates a scenic area 51.55 percent from 2015. hard to make the city an exemplar of Anshun. are Huangguoshu Waterfall, the that offers a package of destinations, The authorities plan to plant 733 of integrated tourism zones in the The most distinctive feature of the province’s top sightseeing desti- which will attract more tourists and hectares of Huangguo, a local fruit, country,” said Zhu. Angela Wong tests samples with her ground opera is that different roles nation, and Loong Palace, which extend their visits, said local tourism this year, double the current num- colleague in her medical examination require different masks, to reveal features karst caves, underground officials. ber. In fact, Huangguoshu Waterfall Contact the writers through lifush- center in Guiyang, Guizhou province. the characters through their chang- waterfalls and serene rural scenery. Zeng Kun, a deputy director of is named after the fruit tree. [email protected] YANG JUN / CHINA DAILY