Reductions in interest rates, coupled with lower reserve requirements for local commercial banks, are helping to create more jobs and provide higher incomes for residents of disadvantaged areas. Chen Jia reports from Huayuan, Hunan province, and Lankao, Henan province.

Despite a new, if slightly bumpy, mountain road and countless tunnels, it still takes more than six hours to drive to Shiba Dong, a village in western Hunan province, from Changsha, the provincial capital.

Surrounded by the Wuling Mountains, and at an average elevation of more than 1,000 meters, the village, which is home to members of the Miao ethnic group, has just 54.5 hectares of cultivatable land. The rest is barren - and that's a major problem in an area where there are few ways of making a living beyond working the land.