Minning Village, Personally Named by Xi Jinping: From a "Dry Sand Beach" to a "Golden Sand Beach"

Ningxia's Xihaiyuan was once impoverished because of harsh natural conditions. In 1997, after Xi Jinping, then Deputy Secretary of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee, visited the area, he promoted poverty alleviation cooperation between the eastern and western regions, and personally selected an area southwest of Yinchuan to build a resettlement village, which was named "Minning Village." In a congratulatory message that year, he wrote, "It is a dry sandbank now; in the future it will be a golden sandbank." Since then, Fujian and Ningxia have continued to carry out paired assistance, bringing in funds, projects, and industries one after another, and Minning Village has gradually developed into Minning Town. The article reviews the changes brought by 30 years of Minning cooperation: local residents' incomes have increased significantly, and distinctive industries such as wine, fungus grass, beef cattle, and Tan sheep have gradually grown stronger. Recently, General Secretary Xi Jinping once again emphasized the need to summarize the experience of Minning cooperation, improve the cooperation mechanism, push eastwest cooperation to deepen further, and promote common development.