As the spring tea season fills the air with fragrance, workers in Shangnanmen Village, Miaogao Subdistrict of Suichang County, deftly pluck tender tea leaves in vast tea fields. Watching the bustling scene, village Party chief Zhang Wenrui finally relaxed his furrowed brow: “In previous years, we always struggled with labor shortages during this season. Now, relocated residents from the Chengdong area are crossing subdistricts to help—filling the labor gap in the tea industry while activating idle workforce resources. It’s a true win-win solution!”

The tea industry is a pillar industry in the Chengping area, with over 70% of households engaged in tea cultivation. As a result, there is a recurring shortage of tea pickers during the harvest season each year. Meanwhile, Tenglong Community under the Chengdong area, which has the highest number of relocated residents in the county, has faced the challenge of creating local employment opportunities for these new residents.

Why not leverage complementary strengths and pursue joint development across these two areas? At the beginning of this year, during the Party-building joint meeting of the five major areas, representatives from Chengping and Chengdong discussed this issue. Follow-up visits and surveys led to two detailed lists: the labor demand in the tea industry and the employment intentions of relocated residents. By organizing skills training, they effectively resolved the dual challenges of labor shortages and employment difficulties.

As the core urban area of Suichang County, Miaogao Subdistrict includes 26 administrative villages and 9 communities, with a permanent population of nearly 100,000. It enjoys clear locational and demographic advantages. However, due to varying geographical locations and industrial structures among the villages and communities, imbalanced development remains a prominent issue, posing a key obstacle to narrowing the “three major gaps” and achieving common prosperity.

To tackle this, in July 2024, Miaogao Subdistrict restructured its 35 subordinate villages and communities into five regional zones, based on the principles of “proximity, shared priorities, manageable scale, and ease of governance”. A “regional chief responsibility system” was implemented to promote co-construction among villages and communities within and across regions, fostering mutual development and shared benefits. This shift from “scattered resources” to “united prosperity” marked an institutional innovation and unlocked a multiplier effect in rural revitalization.

The once underdeveloped Chengping area has now become the highlight of reform. The villages of Shannanmen, Qishantou, and Xianyan, which previously had collective operational incomes of less than 300,000 yuan, adopted an integrated model of “Party Organization + Base + Leader + Farmer”. Together, they built tea plantations, tea processing workshops, and e-commerce platforms, creating jobs for over 220 idle workers in the region. They also jointly participated in common prosperity projects such as “Running Chicks”. By the end of 2024, their respective operational incomes had risen to 419,800 yuan, 401,700 yuan, and 400,500 yuan—each achieving a year-on-year growth of over 100%. “Now everyone’s eager to learn from our experience,” said Zhang Guanliang, Party Secretary of Qishantou Village, with pride.

The data affirms the effectiveness of the reform. In 2024, the total collective income of Miaogao Subdistrict’s villages reached 23.7297 million yuan, of which operational income accounted for 19.13 million yuan—year-on-year increases of 26.72% and 30.29%, respectively. The income disparity between the villages with the highest and lowest operational incomes also narrowed significantly, from a ratio of 13.12 in 2023 to 7.69 in 2024.