my wife is a consul

Chapter 729 Poverty Area
Although the kingdom is in the preparation stages for satellite launches, many rural areas are still poor.

Moreover, the poorest villages are almost all in the northwest of the original Ansan Province.

The new "Wang's Residence" 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 the perspective of the bottom.

In fact, the northern region is sparsely populated, and there are many plains suitable for mechanized agriculture.

Basically, similar to a big western country in the previous life, the mechanization of plain agriculture has become the norm. However, it is about 30 to 40 years behind the western big country at the same time. This semi-animal power of machinery is also common.

A large number of rural laborers have poured into urban factories. According to statistics, by the middle of this year, the agricultural labor force accounted for about 30.00% of the total social labor force[-].

Compared with the big country in the previous life, the natural gap is not small. At the same time, its agricultural labor force was already below 70%, and by [-] years, it was even only [-]%.

However, the Principality of Montenegro has ruled the Northern Territory for more than ten years, and it has created a miracle in the history of the Northern Territory's development.

Xinlong town is located in a mountainous area. It is a poverty-stricken area itself, but it is divided into two levels. The life of the frontier residents on the mountain is even poorer. Neither are affordable.

Lu Ming came to Xinlong following the "Rural Electrification Law", and is a development consultant stationed in Xinlong Town by the Dominion government.

All small towns in the Northern Territory are now a mayor council system, elected by the town residents themselves.

In fact, the mayor (mayor) of the small town will basically be the head of the local prominent family, because the autonomy is so great that it almost determines every aspect of the town, so if you do not do well, naturally you cannot push it to the above policies, etc. Wait, 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 living standards of the residents are getting higher and higher.

Otherwise, you can't just pat your ass and leave, and you will be stabbed to death by the back of the folks.

At the same time, the problem is that the Northern Territory has always been closed and backward, so these town mayors and councilors may not know how to develop the town's economy. Therefore, in many remote towns, it is a kind of development consultant sent by the Dominion government common practice.

These development consultants are not public servants, but more like volunteers. They are usually economic professionals who go to the countryside to help the poor, and there are quite a few university professors.

In the Xining Autonomous Dominion where Xinlong is located, more than 100 small towns have been sent development consultants, which is the largest number of development consultants sent by all the autonomous dominions in the kingdom. They even had to apply for support from the kingdom government.

Lu Ming came here as a trainee teaching assistant at the School of Economics of Xinjing University for two years.

There are more than 2 people in Xinlong Township, including more than 5000 border residents living in the mountains.

The town itself has a population of over 3000.

But in fact, many laborers have moved to the city to work, and the actual population still living in the local area is no longer so many.

The town elected a mayor and five councilors, recruited a sheriff, and a financial supervisory board composed of villagers' representatives, which constituted the structure of the entire town's management organization.

In addition, there is a post office, but it belongs to the police agency of the Federation Kingdom.

The Xinlong Substation, which manages the power distribution of the three nearby towns, is stationed by the Tianhan Kingdom Power United Company.

There are two major power companies in the Kingdom, the Royal Eastern Power Grid Group and the Tianhan Kingdom Power United Company.

The former is a private power company with more than 70.00% shares held by the royal family, while the latter is [-]% controlled by the Kingdom Shareholding Bureau.

The predecessor of the Kingdom Shareholding Bureau was Montenegro Investment Company, but now it has withdrawn from competition in all profitable industries, and focuses on the field of public affairs, that is, basic infrastructure construction and loss-making transactions involving welfare and people's livelihood industries.

However, public utilities, which require taxpayer subsidies, need regulation even more.

For example, Tianhan Kingdom Power United Company, the board of directors is composed of seven directors appointed by the shareholding bureau, and the management team such as the CEO is hired by the board of directors.

Its financial openness and transparency meet the standards of listed companies, and it accepts the financial control of national inspectors, audit courts, financial inspection bureaus and other departments.

Whether it is the directors of the company, or the CEO and other management teams, they all come from the private sector, which is a real corporate management, and there are strict regulations from the management level to the salary of employees, which is basically the median of the working class.

As for the Royal Eastern Power Grid Group, it also receives government subsidies for power grid construction, so its financial statements need to be extremely transparent, and electricity prices are also strictly controlled.

Lu Ming just wanted to see the pros and cons of different models of public utilities, and compare the efficiency, cost control, and pursuit of new technologies of different models.

Moreover, the Royal Power Grid belongs to itself. If it is not doing well, it will be incorporated by the shareholding bureau, which is just a matter of its own words.

……

Lu Ming, a development consultant, rented at the house of a town council member. On the third floor on the hillside, Lu Ming rented on the second floor.

The councilor is Kan Daxing, in his 40s, a big landowner in the town, and a few years ago he opened a canned fruit factory. He is considered the richest person in the town.

The mayor of the town is a scholarly family in the town. Mr. An, who used to be the principal of a primary school in the county, is now retired.

Councilors at the city, county, and township levels are all part-timers and will not be paid. Councilors at the dominion level have special offices and financial allocations.

The mayor does get paid. According to the local financial situation, the annual salary of the mayor of Xinlong Town is 115 yuan, which is not as high as that of the workers in the canned fruit factory established by Kan Da.

The mayor and the town council don't have a place to hold meetings, so they usually come to Kan Daxing's house to discuss matters in the living room on the first floor.

This was the case today. One councilor was not at home. The mayor and the other four councilors, plus Lu Ming, had a meeting with a total of six people. Except for Lu Ming, all of them smoked, making it smoky.

"Consultant Wang, I want to do everything. In the village, all the roads are repaired and electricity is pulled up the mountain, but there is no money!" Mr. An sighed.

The big taxpayer in this small town is Kan Daxing's cannery, but the annual tax payment is only more than [-] yuan.

On the whole, Xinlong Township makes little contribution to the national taxation, such as personal taxation. Only a few people in the whole town reach the threshold of personal taxation. According to relevant policies, the business tax is also kept in the local area and turned into a small town. The fiscal revenue is used for the development of the town.

As for the Kingdom’s agricultural taxation, it protects small and medium-sized farms, and the taxation is also very complicated. The land occupied by Kan Daxing belongs to a medium-sized farm, and the number of employees and salary levels meet the conditions for tax exemption.

However, Kan Daxing donates about 5000 yuan to the "Xinlong Development Fund" every year. The "Xinlong Development Fund" itself was born because of Kan Daxing's donation. The "fund" is supervised by the "Financial Supervisory Committee" composed of villagers' representatives. The budget and the use of the fund require the approval of the "Financial Supervisory Board".

The board of supervisors is actually very loose. Any resident can participate as a representative during the meeting. The statutory number of people in the meeting is 50. Usually it is some enthusiastic people who care about rural affairs.

Of course, there are only one or two hearings a month, that is, when the town makes decisions that require money, it must be made public to all villagers. In addition to the loudspeaker broadcast, a sufficient quorum of the board of supervisors is also required to conduct hearings.

At this moment, Lu Ming nodded slightly as he listened to Mr. An's words.

From what I have seen and heard in the past six months, I actually feel that it is not necessary to send development consultants to small towns in impoverished areas. Basically, the selected people in the small towns are all talented people. If they have money in finance, they all know that such impoverished areas need to carry out foundation work first. Facilities building is the best.

On the contrary, some development consultants, if they are unconventional, may encourage others to come up with some moths.

Well, I still seem to be tinkering with a formalism.

Lu Ming thought silently.

(End of this chapter)