New Bamboo Industries and Pro-Poor impacts: Lessons from China and Potential for Mekong Countries

摘要

Clear market growth opportunities coupled with appropriate conditions in the Mekong countries offer opportunities to access growing global bamboo markets. The experience from China shows that under the right conditions, bamboo can be a lead sector for rural industrialization and large-scale poverty reduction. Bamboo industries have been a key driving force in rural industrialization and widespread poverty reduction in Anji county, Zhejiang province, one of China's 10 "bamboo homelands". The benefit has been distributed across the whole population, with average household incomes for the population increasing by 220% in the first ten years of the bamboo boom. Some researchers have suggested that the greatest impact was the catalyzing effect that bamboo had on the diversification of income opportunities (Ruiz-Perez and Belcher 2001).