Although the kingdom is in the process of preparing for a satellite launch, many rural areas remain poor.
Moreover, the poorest villages are almost all in the northwest of the original Anshan Province.
The new "Wang's House" is located in a small town called Xinlong in the northwest. Lu Ming came here half a year ago and observed the development of the poorest rural areas from a grassroots perspective.
In fact, the northern region is vast and sparsely populated, and there are many plains suitable for mechanized agriculture.
Basically, similar to a certain major Western country in the past, mechanization of plain agriculture has become the norm. However, it is probably 20 to 30 years behind the major Western countries of the same period. In some areas, like in the 1930s and 1940s, semi-animal-powered machinery that used several horses as power to pull tillage and sowing machinery was also very common.
A large number of rural laborers have poured into urban factories. According to statistics, by the middle of this year, agricultural laborers accounted for about 35 percent of the total labor force.
Naturally, there is a big gap compared with the great country in the previous world. At the same time, its agricultural labor force was already less than 10%, and by 1970, it was even only 3%.
However, during the more than ten years that the Black Mountain Principality has ruled the Northern Territory, it has created a miracle in the history of the Northern Territory's development.
Xinlong Town is located in the mountainous area, which is itself a poverty-stricken area, but it is divided into two levels. The border residents in the mountains live in even greater poverty. For example, the residents living at the foot of the mountain basically have access to electricity, but power outages are quite frequent. However, the border residents in the mountainous areas can hardly afford to buy candles.
Lu Ming came to Xinlong following the Rural Electrification Act and is a development consultant sent by the Dominion government to Xinlong Town.
All towns in the Northern Territory now have a mayor-council system, elected by the town's residents themselves.
In fact, the mayor of a small town will basically be the head of a local prominent family, because they have great power of autonomy and almost decide every aspect of the town. So, if you don't do well, you naturally cannot blame it on the policies from above. If you want your family to maintain a high prestige in the local area, you really have to find ways to make the town better and better and the residents' living standards higher and higher.
Otherwise, you can't just walk away, or you will be stabbed to death by the villagers behind your back.
At the same time, the problem is that the Northern Territory has always been in a closed and backward state, so these mayors and councillors may not know how to develop the economy of the small town. Therefore, in many remote towns, it is a common practice for the autonomous government to send development consultants.
These development consultants are not civil servants but more like volunteers. They are usually economic professionals who go to the countryside to help alleviate poverty, and there are many university professors among them.
In the Xining Autonomous Region where Xinlong is located, more than one hundred small towns have been sent out to develop consultants, the largest number of development consultants sent by all the autonomous regions in the kingdom, and some even have to apply for support from the royal government.
Lu Ming came here to provide border assistance as an intern teaching assistant at the School of Economics of New Beijing University for two years.
Xinlong Town has a population of more than 20,000, of which more than 5,000 are border residents living in the mountainous areas.
The town itself has a population of more than 3,000 people.
But in fact, many laborers have gone to the city to work, and the actual population living locally is no longer that large.
The town elected a mayor and five council members, recruited a sheriff, and together with the financial supervisory board composed of villagers' representatives, this formed the structure of the entire town's management organization.
There is also a post office, but it is a branch of the Federal Kingdom.
The Xinlong substation, which manages the power distribution in the three nearby towns, is stationed by the Tianhan Kingdom Electric Power Corporation.
The Kingdom has two major electricity companies, the Royal Eastern Grid Group and the Kingdom of Tienhan Electricity Company.
The former is a private power company in which the royal family holds more than 70% of the shares, while the latter is 100% controlled by the Kingdom Holding Corporation.
The predecessor of the Kingdom Shareholding Bureau was the Black Mountain Investment Company, but now it has withdrawn from all competition in profitable industries and focused on the field of public affairs, which is basically doing loss-making business in infrastructure construction and welfare-related people's livelihood industries.
However, public utility companies that require taxpayer subsidies need more regulation.
For example, in the case of Tianhan Kingdom Power United Company, the shareholding bureau appoints seven directors to form the board of directors, which in turn appoints the CEO and other management teams.
Its financial transparency is based on the standards of listed companies and it is subject to financial control by national inspectors, the Audit Court, the Financial Inspection Bureau and other departments.
Whether it is the company's directors or the CEO and other management teams, they all come from the public. It is a truly corporate management system. There are strict regulations on salaries from management to employees, which are basically the median of the working class.
As for the Royal Eastern Grid Group, it also receives government subsidies for its grid construction, so its financial statements need to be extremely transparent and electricity prices are also strictly controlled.
Lu Ming just wanted to look at the pros and cons of different models for public utilities, and compare the efficiency, cost control, and pursuit of new technologies of different models.
Moreover, the Royal Power Grid belongs to them. If they do not perform well, they will be taken over by the shareholding bureau with just a word from them.
…
Lu Ming, a development consultant, rented a house from a town councillor. It was a three-story building on a hillside, and Lu Ming lived on the second floor.
The congressman's name is Kan Daxing. He is in his forties and is a big landlord in the town. A few years ago, he also opened a wild fruit canning factory. He is considered the richest man in the town.
The mayor is Mr. An, who comes from a scholarly family in the town and used to be a primary school principal in the county town and is now retired.
Councillors at the city, county and town levels are all part-time and do not receive any salary. Only councillors at the dominion level have dedicated offices and financial allocations.
The mayor does have a salary. According to the local financial situation, the annual salary of the mayor of Xinlong Town is 115 yuan, which is not as high as the salary of the workers at the fruit canning factory founded by Kan Daxing.
The mayor and the town council had no place to hold meetings, so they usually came to Kan Daxing's house and discussed matters in the living room on the first floor.
That was the case today. One councillor was not at home, so the mayor, the other four councillors, and Lu Ming, a total of six people were in the meeting. Except for Lu Ming, several people were smoking, making the room full of smoke.
"Advisor Wang, I want to do everything, build roads in the village, and bring electricity to the mountains, but I have no money!" Old Mr. An sighed.
The largest taxpayer in this small town is Kan Daxing’s cannery, but it only pays more than a thousand yuan in taxes each year.
In general, Xinlong Town makes almost no contribution to national taxes. For example, in the entire town, there are only a few people who meet the personal tax threshold. In accordance with relevant policies, business taxes are also retained locally and converted into town fiscal revenue for use in town development.
As for the kingdom's agricultural taxes, they are designed to protect small and medium-sized farms, and the taxes are also very complicated. The land owned by Kan Daxing belongs to a medium-sized farm, and the number of employees and salary levels meet the tax exemption conditions.
However, Kan Daxing donates about 5,000 yuan to the "Xinlong Development Fund" every year. The "Xinlong Development Fund" itself was established because of Kan Daxing's donation. The "Fund" is supervised by the "Financial Supervisory Board" composed of villagers' representatives. The township fiscal budget and the use of the fund require the approval of the "Financial Supervisory Board".
The Supervisory Board is actually very loose. Any resident can participate in the meeting as a representative. The statutory number of people required for a meeting is fifty, and it is usually organized by some enthusiastic people who care about village affairs. Sometimes, if there are not enough people at the meeting, they need to recruit more people.
Of course, they only hold one or two hearings a month. When the town needs to spend money to make a decision, it must be open to all villagers. In addition to the loudspeaker broadcast, a sufficient number of supervisors with a legal number of members are required to hold a hearing.
At this time, Lu Ming listened to Mr. An speaking and nodded slightly.
From what I have seen and heard over the past six months, I feel that there is not much need to send development consultants to small towns in poor areas. Basically, the people selected in the small towns are all smart people. They have money and they all know that in such poor areas, the best thing to do is to build infrastructure first.
On the contrary, some development consultants, if they try to be unconventional, might encourage others to do something weird.
Well, it seems that I have worked out a kind of formalism.
Lu Ming pondered silently.