This year, Sichuan Province will focus on the implementation of 75 land improvement and poverty alleviation projects mainly in 38 of the 88 impoverished counties with a construction scale of 8.651 million mu, which is expected to haveanother 68,800mu of cultivated landafter their completion. Thus, the average quality of cultivated land will be improved, benefiting 0.4 million people.

　　The 75 projects are distributed in 9 cities (prefectures) including Luzhou, Mianyang, Guangyuan, Guang'an, Nanchong, Yibin, Dazhou, Bazhong and Ganzi, covering 352 villages in 38 poverty-stricken counties, including 4 seriously poor ones and 19 of 30 counties which are planned to be alleviated from poverty in 2018.

　　According to the plan, an estimated budget of 1.15 billion yuan will be invested.The biddingwill be completed by the end of June, andthe construction will start before the end of July and completed by November 20. During the implementation of these projects,local impoverished people with labor ability will be involved in the construction.

　　To ensure high-quality implementation of the projects, Sichuan Provincial Department of Land and Resources will incorporate them into the 2018 responsibility target assessment for cultivated land protection of local governments and land and resources departments, and the results will be made public at the end of the year.