Connecting to prosperity

Haila, the town in which Haiyuan village is located, is ringed on three sides by towering mountains. On the fourth side is the Niulan River.

"More than 20,000 households, or about 100,000 residents, in the town in the mountains were literally isolated from the outside world for ages," said Zeng Chaoding, the Party chief of Haiyuan village. "They lived on corn and potatoes."

There are more than 20 zip lines over the Niulan River, which divides Guizhou and Yunnan provinces.

As bridges replace zip lines, many people living deep in the mountains have bought motorbikes, three-wheeled carts or cars. Though living in the mountains, they are no longer isolated. In Haiyuan village, which has 1,300 residents, there are more than 60 cars.

Leng, who raises cattle and uses corn to make alcohol, earns about 60,000 yuan ($8,700) a year.

The bridges have turned out to be local farmers' shortcut to better livelihoods as well, since Haiyuan villagers can now sell produce such as sweet potatoes and ginseng to places on the other side of the river.

Transportation improvement has been a major strategy for reducing regional poverty in Guizhou.

A host of giant infrastructure projects have been rolled out over the past decade, and these have reshaped the province. Nowadays, Guizhou is home to 50 out of the 100 highest bridges in the world, and many of the bridges were completed in the past decade.

Bridges in the mountains and hills that account for more than 90 percent of Guizhou's landmass have helped the province achieve its seemingly unattainable poverty-reduction goal.

The efficiency of transportation has been continuously improved as part of the poverty alleviation efforts, with remarkable results.