A commercial street selling snacks and souvenirs in Zhanqi village of Chengdu, Sichuan province is reopened on August 18th. The street named Shiba Fang, used to be the site of the village's compound fertilizer plant and prefabricated cement board plant. Both plants were almost on the brink of bankruptcy due to low business.
In September 2015, the land was sold to a company engaged in tourism development. The land covered nearly 0.9 hectares and was sold for about 7 million RMB, according to Du Suoping, an official in the Pidu District. After more than one year of construction, the street was opened on August 18th. Business is thriving in the street which also created jobs for villagers. Villagers who used to work as migrant laborers have returned.
The street has workshops making and selling local specialties such as bean paste, rice dumplings and art works of embroidery and bamboo weaving. The renewal work is aimed at making better use of idle rural collective land and increasing villagers' income. The idle land is now allowed to be sold for money that will be used to benefit villagers.
Chengdu, the capital of China's southwest Sichuan Province, is famed for being the home of giant pandas. Located in the west of Sichuan Basin and in the center of Chengdu Plain, the city covers a total area of 12.3 thousand square kilometers (4,749 square miles) with a population of over 11 million.