By this June, southwestern Yunnan Province has helped its bordering Cambodia and Laos to plant over 900,000 mu (60,000 hectares) cash-bearing crops to relieve their dependence on growing opium poppy, said sources with the local government.

 

Sun Dahong, deputy director of the provincial department of public security said on Friday at the mobilization conference on poppy alternative development, that by the end of last year, the Yunnan government has developed 700,000-mu cash-bearing crops in the northern part of Cambodia and Laos, among which nearly 400,000 mu soil had been planted poppy originally.

 

It cost the local government an investment of over 500 million yuan (US$62.5 million).

 

To crackdown drugs from the origin, the Yunnan government began to give supports to local enterprises to grow cash-bearing crops in bordering countries to reduce their dependence on poppy plantation since the 1990's.

 

Those crops include grain, rubber, rice, sugar cane, longan, tea and corn.

 

According to statistics of the local department of commerce, from this January to June, 29 local enterprises has invested 170 million yuan in developing 220,000-mu cash-bearing crops.

 

Sun said that to develop cash-bearing crops in traditional opium-plantation-relying region has not only reduce the plantation of opium, but also driven the development of local economy by offering local people new way of living and the accelerating construction of local infrastructures.

 

News from the conference said that Yunnan plans to develop 1.5 million mu of cash-bearing crops in Cambodia and Laos in the next five years.

 

(Xinhua News Agency August 27, 2006)