A woman of Lahu ethnic group picks tea leaves at Bulangshan township in Menghai county, Southwest China's Yunnan province, on April 11, 2020. [Photo/Xinhua]

Guangdong province has helped a total of 93 poverty-stricken counties in southern and southwestern China get off the country's poverty list, according to a senior official of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

Song Zongyue, an inspector for the department, said that to achieve the goal, Guangdong invested more than 67.1 billion yuan ($10.32 billion) since 2016 to help poor counties in 14 cities and prefectures in Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan provinces and the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

"The Guangdong provincial government has also sent a total of 480 Party and government officials, plus 9,597 teachers, doctors and related professionals and personnel, to work in those poor areas in recent years," Song said at a news conference in Guangzhou on Thursday.

The provincial government has also encouraged and guided 13,710 Guangdong companies to invest more than 354.3 billion yuan to set up production facilities and projects in poor counties and to help build hospitals and schools, further improve infrastructure, attract investment and develop the rural economies, Song said.

Meanwhile the prosperous province has absorbed more than 3.87 million migrant workers from poor counties in central and western China to work in the province's foreign-funded joint ventures — in both State-owned and private companies — playing a role in helping poor families shake off poverty and raise their incomes, Song said.

A total 307 townships and 2,446 enterprises from Guangdong have paired up with counterparts in central and western China to help poor townships rise out of poverty, Song added.

Zheng Ke, deputy Party chief of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, said that city alone has invested 44.5 billion yuan to help poor counties in central and western China in recent years.

Despite the coronavirus outbreak that hit China and many other countries and regions around the world, Shenzhen has overcome the downward pressure on the economy and has so far invested 4.54 billion yuan to help poor counties in the central and western parts of the country develop their economies this year — up 980 million yuan from last year's 3.567 billion yuan — Zheng said.

Shenzhen's investment has mainly been used to help poor areas accelerate construction of rural highways, reconstruct and renovate dilapidated houses, relocate residents, build drinking water pipeline networks and construct hospitals and schools, Zheng added.