At the southern edge of the Horqin Sandy Land, Aolun Gacha in Elshun Town, Kulun Banner, Tongliao City, had long been trapped by wind and sand erosion, scarce arable land and a single industry. Since 2021, the Party Committee of CITIC Bank (SEHK: 00998, SSE: 601998) Hohhot Branch has firmly implemented the Party Central Committee's decisions and arrangements on comprehensively promoting rural revitalization, treating designated assistance as a vivid practice of fulfilling the social responsibility of a state-owned financial enterprise and carrying out the mission of finance for the people. Since becoming the paired assistance unit for the Gacha in 2021, the branch has selected a first secretary stationed in the village to take root in the local area, and has regularly carried out external donations, consumption-based assistance and material donations, helping the Gacha achieve thriving industries, an ecologically livable environment, civilized local customs, effective governance and a prosperous life. With a financial pen full of care for the people, it has written a rural revitalization answer sheet of "stationing in the village and also in the heart, assisting the roots as well as the people" on the sandy grassland.
Setting the direction and managing the overall situation, drawing one assistance blueprint under the leadership of the Party Committee
Assistance is not a one-time deal, but a long-term systematic project. The bank's Party Committee has always included designated assistance in its key work deployment, and around the four major aspects of strengthening village Party organizations, enriching the village and the people, improving governance, and serving the people, it has built an assistance pattern of "Party Committee coordination, branch implementation, and Party members taking the lead." Successive leadership teams have gone deep into the Gacha for research many times, solving project promotion difficulties on site, and ensuring that limited resources are precisely directed to where they are needed most. The first secretary stationed in the village has deeply integrated into Gacha governance, strictly implemented the "three meetings and one lesson" system, regularly carried out household visits, invited veteran Party members and skilled wealth creators to share experience, explained Party policies to the hearts of the masses, and delivered the warmth of the organization to people's doorsteps. The bank also set up a rural revitalization Party building contact point in the Gacha, promoted joint Party building between the bank and the village, and regularly carried out financial knowledge lectures such as anti-fraud education, making grassroots governance both stronger and warmer.
Developing industries and strengthening the foundation, activating internal momentum through project-driven development
When industry thrives, the countryside thrives. With industrial assistance as the core, the bank has invested more than 400,000 yuan in assistance funds, promoting a shift in the assistance model from "blood transfusion supply" to "blood-making cultivation." In terms of infrastructure, the bank donated agricultural drones to the Gacha, generating operating income through socialized services and promoting employment; it donated an excavator to help repair water canals and build water conservancy infrastructure in the Gacha, effectively improving rural water conservancy facilities and helping improve the quality and efficiency of agricultural and livestock production. In terms of industrial projects, it actively connected the Gacha with organic fertilizer production enterprises to continuously expand the scale of rural industries; by revitalizing collective land resources, it achieved an annual increase of more than 100,000 yuan in village collective economic income; it successfully introduced an assistance enterprise under the "Ten Thousand Enterprises Help Ten Thousand Villages" initiative, injecting external momentum into the Gacha's industrial development; and it coordinated with communications departments to optimize communications base stations and lower tariff standards in the Gacha, solving problems of weak signals and difficult communications for villagers. After five years of precise assistance, the collective economic income of Aolun Gacha has increased by more than 1 million yuan cumulatively compared with before the assistance work began in October 2021, and the endogenous momentum for village-level development has continued to strengthen.
Expanding channels and promoting income growth, opening the "road out of the village" for agricultural products through consumption-based assistance
Good products must also sell well. The bank has actively built diversified sales channels for agricultural products, relying on multiple channels such as the Dachanghang online platform and centralized procurement by the branch trade union to broaden the sales of specialty agricultural products such as buckwheat from Aolun Gacha, achieving a cumulative consumption-based assistance sales volume of more than 20,000 jin. It has innovated agricultural assistance exhibition and sales models and built cross-regional promotion channels: in February 2026, it promoted high-quality buckwheat series products from Kulun Banner into the cafeteria of the CITIC Bank head office building for tasting and exhibition sales; in June 2026, leveraging competition event scenarios, it opened a designated assistance agricultural product exhibition and sales zone; in September 2026, it introduced designated assistance products into a large enterprise's employee internal purchase fair, further broadening offline sales channels. The three events cumulatively sold more than 3,000 pieces of agricultural products. At the same time, it actively connected with the "Dachang Xingnong" platform under CITIC Group to promote the full online entry of local buckwheat products, building an integrated online and offline, regular and long-term agricultural product sales network, and continuously smoothing the local specialty product production-sales value-added chain.
Warming people's hearts and securing the bottom line, weaving a livelihood "safety net" through precise measures
The effectiveness of assistance must ultimately be written on the smiling faces of the people. The bank has regularly carried out public welfare and benefit donations, organizing three donations of clothing, home appliances and other daily necessities; it has closely followed assistance work for key groups, dynamically adding 5 monitored households with 15 people over five years, and village-stationed officials have regularly carried out warm visits and material assistance, focusing on key groups such as elderly people living alone, monitored households and households lifted out of poverty, sincerely solving practical difficulties in people's lives and strengthening the close ties between Party officials and the masses. At the same time, it has actively implemented employment policies that benefit the people, setting up 13 public welfare positions and 3 forest ranger positions in the Gacha, effectively driving local people to find nearby employment and stabilizing their incomes. Since 2021, villagers of Aolun Gacha have spontaneously presented banners many times to express their sincere gratitude for the bank's assistance work in a simple way.
Dual empowerment and joint improvement, building a "heart-to-heart bridge" among banks, government and enterprises through the village-stationed platform
Assistance does not stop in the countryside; empowerment is also reflected in the overall situation. The bank has actively explored a new path of integrated empowerment through "village-stationed assistance financial services," adhered to "taking responsibility while stationed in the village and achieving real results in empowerment," deeply explored the resource endowments of the front line of village assistance, and promoted two-way connection and integrated advancement between rural assistance practice and inclusive finance business. Relying on grassroots governance experience accumulated through long-term village stationing, the first secretary stationed in the village helped build a bank-government-enterprise linkage and cooperation platform and broadened financial channels for assisting agriculture. Relying on the entrepreneurship and innovation competition of the Autonomous Region's Department of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, the bank connected with 25 high-quality agricultural and livestock enterprises on site, surveyed financing needs, and built cooperation bridges with 4 agriculture-related enterprises, providing a 10 million yuan credit loan to a food enterprise and a 50 million yuan credit line to an agricultural product deep-processing enterprise, precisely directing the "living water" of inclusive finance to the agricultural and livestock industry, and effectively practicing the assistance mission with financial strength. This cooperation is a vivid practice of the branch innovating its assistance model based on its village-stationed position, exploring a distinctive assistance path of "transforming village-stationing advantages into financial momentum for assisting agriculture," and opening a new direction for deeply cultivating agriculture-related inclusive finance and helping comprehensively promote rural revitalization.
Sowing green in the sea of sand, empowering with finance. A relevant person in charge of CITIC Bank (SEHK: 00998, SSE: 601998) Hohhot Branch said that next, it will continue to rely on the group's advantages of "full financial licenses and broad industrial coverage," deepen the "1+5+N" distinctive comprehensive financial service system, continuously consolidate and expand the achievements of poverty alleviation and effectively connect them with rural revitalization, and contribute greater strength to supporting local economic development.
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