Rich village is living up to its own name

Tamiao Village in Jiading is earning its name as a “rich village.” Last year, villagers were given a dividend totaling 25 million yuan (US$3.62 million).

A tourist might be left with the impression that there are a lot of car owners here. In fact, it is quite common for each household to have a car while their livelihood also has a lot to do with cars.

In the 1980s when the auto industry was taking off in Shanghai, the village followed the trend and started several village-owned enterprises related to cars, including Shanghai Tongzhou Auto Parts Co Ltd.

“In the 1990s, we were sent to work at Tongzhou, and I was among the earliest in the company to be sent to Volkswagen to learn welding techniques,” said villager Yao Meifang.

“My family’s financial condition greatly improved then. I bought a bicycle with the first month’s salary,” she said.

Yao’s experience is a reflection of the village’s history.

In the 1980s, Tamiao was in severe poverty with only two tractors in the village and half of the villagers in debt, while its disposable income was 119 million yuan in 2018.

Over the years, Tamiao has grown strong by grasping every possible opportunity. Now it has assumed the role of helping enterprises thrive.

The village bought a logistics park at a cost of 170 million yuan and rented a 60,000-square-meter land to Tongzhou which built an automated factory and is set to kickstart its new automatic production line for auto parts by the end of the year.

It’s estimated that the production line will have an annual output of 60 million yuan, boosting the overall outcome for the new plant to 1.5 billion yuan.

The company is also benefitting the village by recruiting locally.

“Over the years, villagers in Tamiao has been our priority to recruit,” said Wang Qifeng, Tongzhou’s general manager. “About 80 percent of villagers at the proper age now work at our company.”

On the other hand, 120 out of the total 850 employees are Tamiao villagers.

Wang Haibo, a Tamiao villager, joined Tongzhou a decade ago. Starting from the first-line operator, he is now head of quality guarantee team and works on technique management.

“I was designated here right after graduation and my annual salary is about 90,000 yuan,” Wang said.

Tamiao is also investing in Changsha in Hunan Province and Nanjing in Jiangsu Province and has made a 35-million-yuan investment in collaboration with Anting Town in Jiading.

Last year the village made 75 million yuan, spend 17 million yuan on villagers’ welfare and distributed another 25 million yuan as bonuses.

Since 1985, Tamiao has been the first among suburban villages to be installed with modern facilities such as tap water, closed circuit television, gas and telephones.

Greening, garbage collecting and the senior nursing home are among the services that have been improved in Tamiao, allowing villagers to be rich not only in income, but also in their daily lives.