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In early winter, clear lakes wind their way around Shitang Town, Yunhe County, setting off beautifully against the golden sandy beaches. A professional skills team for industrial development planning, composed of town and village officials as well as renowned local military writers, is busily engaged in the frontline of project implementation. They have integrated the previously scattered ecological and red tourism resources into a distinctive cultural and tourism industrial chain featuring “aerospace research tours, outdoor expansion, and lakeside leisure”.
To address the predicament of scattered village attractions operating in isolation and the declining appeal of scenic areas, this team has transformed itself into a frontline “combat unit”. Leveraging local ecological advantages and aerospace cultural heritage, it has built the “Jiangnan Aerospace Valley” and advanced the planning and construction of characteristic projects such as Xiaoshun Aerospace Research and Study Village and Changting “Moon Landing” Camping Park, turning “isolated scenic spots” into an “integrated scenic area”.
Across the whole Lishui City, a total of 354 such specialized skills teams have been established, covering all towns and sub-districts. Meanwhile, a skills resource pool has been set up by recruiting 1,227 experts in rural development, and 210 frontline skills studios have been built.
The core of mountainous area development lies in “people”, and the key rests with the capabilities and work styles of officials. Lishui has comprehensively advanced the upgrading of the initiative to “cultivate skilled officials and build a skill-oriented government” in the new era, sparking an upsurge in the “Eight Major Initiatives” including precise formulation of skills frameworks, scientific establishment of skills teams, practical training for skill enhancement, on-the-job assessment of skill application, and dual-dimensional evaluation of skill effectiveness. This has effectively driven the transformation of skilled officials from “individual excellence” to the “collective strength” of skills teams.
Starting with enhancing skills, Lishui has solved the problem of transforming government functions. A comprehensive campaign of reshaping the cadre team and reforming government functions centered on “skills” has been carried out across the city’s green mountains and clear waters. By empowering officials with skills to drive development momentum, optimize government functions, and improve service efficiency, Lishui has blazed a new trail of common prosperity through skill empowerment for rural revitalization in mountainous regions.
Multi-Role Competence, Full-Scope Evolution
The initiative to “cultivate skilled officials and build a skill-oriented government” represents an important innovation in grassroots Party building in Lishui.
At one time, the inherent shortage of development resources was intertwined with the challenges posed by the rapid evolution of industrial formats, leaving the cadre team facing a “capacity crisis” where “old methods no longer work and new methods are not yet mastered”. Meanwhile, people’s aspirations for a better life have grown increasingly strong, placing higher demands on the professionalism and refinement of government services.
When officials are equipped with practical skills, they gain the confidence to serve the people. In the past, officials specialized in certain professional skills, such as “cauliflower officials”, “moso bamboo officials” and “water bamboo shoot officials”, emerged one after another, becoming guides for people to increase their incomes and achieve prosperity. Today, facing the impact of new formats and new technologies, local governments across the city have focused on the needs of development and the aspirations of the people, forging a cadre team with “multiple skills for one post” in keeping with the times.
“Officials learn what the people need.” Focusing on the practical requirements for officials’ capabilities in advancing common prosperity in mountainous areas, Lishui has comprehensively built an upgraded, demand-driven precise training system. It promotes the deep integration of officials’ skill enhancement with the needs of common prosperity, allowing officials to temper their abilities, tackle tough challenges on the main battlefield of development, and transform “value-added skills” into “common prosperity gains”.
Centering on the entire industrial chain of “planning, incubation, production, processing, marketing, branding, and financing”, at the municipal level, classified lists of value-added skills for common prosperity have been formulated and released, including 26 skills for township officials covering rural industrial planning and positioning, market-oriented operation of village revitalization companies, etc., and 17 comprehensive skills for village officials covering mass ideological work and innovative communication, operation of “micro-tourism” formats, etc., establishing a universal competency framework.
Drone aerial photography, new media copywriting, short video editing, IP design... Young officials in Rongjiang Township, Jinyun County have unlocked roles as directors, hosts, and planners through skill enhancement. They have developed trendy bases such as motorcycle stations and UTV off-road parks, launched new business formats including village-themed cafes, sculptures, and copper paintings, and implemented new projects such as stand-up paddleboarding carnivals, fish lantern parades, military experience activities, and beach concerts, turning traditional villages into popular tourist check-in spots.
“This is the place where Xu Minwei grew up.” “Our shiitake mushrooms grow in forests at an altitude of 800 meters.” “Polygonatum is processed using the ancient method of nine times of steaming and nine times of sun-drying.”... At the 2025 Songyang Basketball League Yuyan Home Game held recently, officials from Yuyan Town showcased their respective strengths, flexibly applying skills such as short video script writing, lens language expression, and live broadcast script design, transforming themselves into “local tour guides”, “product commentators” and “online promoters”. After the event, on-site sales of characteristic agricultural and forestry products exceeded 30,000 yuan, with continuous online inquiries and orders pouring in, realizing the goal of channeling the popularity of the “Zhejiang Basketball Association League” into mountainous areas and “monetizing” officials’ skills.
“Master one skill, drive one area, enrich one region.” At present, all 173 towns and sub-districts in the city have formulated “one skill framework for each town” based on local conditions, accurately identifying skill gaps in key work areas such as local characteristic agriculture and rural cultural tourism. This has driven more than 20,000 rural officials to benchmark themselves against these frameworks, target skill improvement, and shift the mode of skill supply from “extensive irrigation” to “precision drip irrigation”, ensuring that what officials learn is applicable and what they apply meets practical needs.
Responding to the demand for upgrading the celadon industry, Baoxi Township, Longquan City has precisely cultivated officials’ skills in project planning and cultural tourism operation. Through measures such as activating intangible cultural heritage and promoting brand building, it has helped Xitou Village be recognized as one of the World’s “Best Tourism Villages”, driving the township’s tourism revenue to reach 50 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 38%. This has effectively linked officials’ skill enhancement with industrial value increment and farmers’ income growth.
Collective Collaboration, Cluster-Based Leap
It has become a common practice in Lishui for all cadres to learn, master and apply professional skills. Batch after batch of skill service teams have broken away from the traditional model, evolved into “vanguard corps” that work as a collective, and thus transformed the city’s development from “excellent individuals” to “a strong whole”, achieving cluster development.
To further amplify the effect of skills in empowering rural common prosperity, all towns (sub-districts) across the city have established tailor-made “10+X” skill service teams in light of local conditions and actual needs, which cover the entire industrial chain and all key links. Priority has been given to building 10 core teams, including those for industrial development planning, resource revitalization and factor guarantee, brand building and market expansion, business entity cultivation and common prosperity workshop development, village-owned company operation guidance, employment assistance and skills training, rural cultural tourism planning and operation, e-commerce livestreaming empowerment, digital rural construction, and innovation and entrepreneurship incubation. Meanwhile, a number of “X” characteristic teams have been formed.
Shifting from “working alone” to “pursuing common prosperity as a cluster” and from “solving problems at individual points” to “providing systematic empowerment”, these skill teams are constantly activating new momentum for industrial development in their respective areas.
Based on its emergency rescue skill team and in response to the needs of industrial development, Dajun Township of Jingning She Autonomous County has successively set up three skill service teams for industrial development planning, cultural tourism planning and operation, and innovation and entrepreneurship incubation. All 35 township cadres have joined the teams, sparking an upsurge of undertaking businesses driven by professional skills.
Accurately focusing on the “Dream-Painting Dagangtou” regional public brand, Dagangtou Town of Liandu District has established an industrial development planning team composed of backbones responsible for the town’s economic and ecological development as well as art-based rural construction. Professional and technical cadres and industrial operation experts have been specially invited as mentors, forming a composite skill unit featuring “administrative coordination + professional technology + market operation”.
Driven by this team, business formats such as oil painting workshops, integrated tea-tourism, and cultural and creative markets have helped more than 300 villagers secure jobs right at their doorsteps. Alone, positions such as commercial painting processing, tea garden management and homestay services have boosted the annual per capita income of villagers by over 50,000 yuan, translating industrial dividends into people’s wellbeing. It is estimated that the collective operating income of the 6 villages in the area will exceed 4.5 million yuan in 2025.
Beauty Makeup Cai Duan, creating wonderful beauty. Seizing the opportunity of transformation and upgrading of local pencil manufacturers, the industrial development planning team of Pingdu Sub-district of Qingyuan County has locked onto the new track of integrating “cosmetics industry with cultural tourism”. The team has transferred the use rights of more than 20 idle old houses for integrated village-wide operation, cleverly dividing the village into themed zones including a historical and cultural block, a cosmetics-themed check-in block, and a biodiversity research zone. This initiative has enabled the village to realize a dramatic transformation from a single development model to a diversified experience-oriented one, with 7 characteristic projects launched, such as a cosmetics park, a themed hotel and an ethnic wedding custom cosmetics museum.
“Hushan has long been renowned for its fresh fish, but in the past, the industry lacked core identity and brand leadership. Now, by systematically learning skills in rural cultural tourism destination marketing and IP development, we have innovatively launched the regional IP ‘Fun in Hushan Lake’ and simultaneously planned a food festival as a platform for implementation, achieving dual improvement in brand building and industrial effectiveness.” Ye Yangtian, a cadre of Hushan Township of Suichang County, shared his profound insights when talking about the newly acquired “value-added skills”.
The township has set up a cultural tourism skill service team composed of township cadres, cultural tourism specialists and industry consultants. By virtue of composite skills in brand planning, business format integration and digital operation, the team has driven a more than 20% growth in bookings for 5 cross-village themed tourist routes, including the “Ancient Village Exploration Route” and the “Starry Sky Camping Route”, effectively converting online traffic into integrated consumption across multiple business formats in the area.
To address the “growing pains” of internet-famous villages, the cultural tourism planning and operation team of Sidu Township of Songyang County has rooted itself in the frontline for practical planning and operation work. It has built a new media matrix named “Dachenjiapu Village (a cliffside ancient village in Songyang County)” and organized 12 distinctive events, such as the “Good Luck Ancient Village Art Festival” and the “Cloud Watermelon” Tasting Fair, continuously polishing the core IP of “Cliffside Ancient Village” and achieving over 150 million cumulative online exposures. In 2025, the area received over 600,000 tourists, with total tourism revenue reaching more than 45 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13%.
Focusing on business entity cultivation and common prosperity workshop development, the skill team of Gaoshi Township of Qingtian County has addressed key development bottlenecks such as fragmented land plots, difficulty in variety adaptation and capital shortage, and planned a crop rotation model of “50 mu of lilies plus 50 mu of rice” (mu: a unit of area, 1 mu is approximately 666.67 square meters), completing the construction of a standardized base in just a few months. Since 2025, the lily base has paid out more than 380,000 yuan in wages. Farmers who participated in the entire planting cycle have seen an annual income increase of over 10,000 yuan, and the village-level collective economy has grown by more than 80,000 yuan, forming a sound development pattern of “industrial-driven growth and shared benefits”.
Cadres go to the grassroots, skills are enhanced. To closely link the work of the teams with frontline needs and development outcomes, Lishui has fully implemented the “project list system” management, and established a supporting “Five Ones” team operation system, which includes a round of empowerment training, a set of operation mechanisms, an entity-based position, a set of evaluation standards, and an expert think tank.
In the process of working as a collective, skill teams across Lishui have not only acted as “area operators” but also served as “connectors for common prosperity”. They have organically linked up previously fragmented resources into a development community, promoting the transformation of resources into products, traffic into retained customers, and villagers into shareholders, thus achieving cluster development that advances from “single-point breakthrough” to “regional symbiosis”.
Integrated Learning, Practice, Evaluation and Application for Systematic Transformation
The core of improving cadres' professional skills lies in “practicality”, and the key criterion is “actual results”.
To address the three major challenges currently faced, namely difficulties in improving cadres’ professional skills, evaluating their practical performance and implementing targeted incentives, as well as the two key confusions regarding the direction and specific approaches of government function transformation, Lishui has innovatively established the “One Post, Dual Capabilities and Two Evaluations” mechanism. Starting from all links, it has built a full-chain training system for skilled cadres covering learning, practicing, evaluating and applying.
A relevant responsible person from the Organization Department of the Municipal Party Committee explained that “One Post” serves as the foundation, referring to the specific positions held by cadres, which are the carriers of responsibilities. “Dual Capabilities” is the key requirement, mandating that cadres should not only possess the “basic competency for post duties” to fulfill their regular work, but also master the “value-added capability for development services” to directly serve industrial development and meet the needs of the people.
Learn with a focus on skills, and work centered on industries. To address the shortcomings in cadres’ professional capabilities, Lishui has set up the country’s first Rural Cadre Skills College, building a three-level skill training network consisting of 1 municipal-level college, 9 county-level training centers and 452 rural common prosperity schools. It has launched a customized, targeted “integrated learning, doing and evaluating” skill training model.
Since 2025, coordinated training programs at the municipal, county and township levels have benefited 5,619 rural cadres, and 81% of rural cadres across the city have mastered specialized skills to serve industrial development. Through practical training featuring “learning by doing and doing by learning”, 560 new projects have been planned, among which 297 have been launched or reached cooperation intentions. Meanwhile, by establishing the “project bidding and leadership appointment” mechanism for key rural industrial projects, 354 skill teams have been encouraged to take the initiative to undertake 486 common prosperity projects.
To ensure that the “Dual Capabilities” requirement is translated from concept into practice, Lishui has established a parallel cadre evaluation system consisting of “basic performance evaluation” and “value-added achievement evaluation”. It prioritizes the actual results of serving industries and promoting common prosperity as hard indicators, which are strongly linked to cadres’ promotion and appointment, selection for honors and awards, and performance-based incentives.
The clear employment orientation of “valuing skills, emphasizing actual performance and strengthening incentives” has completely broken the vague situation in traditional assessments where “there is no difference between those who work and those who do not, and between those who do more and those who do less”. Up to now, a total of 128 skilled cadres with outstanding performance and recognition from the public have been promoted or given more important positions across the city.
As the birthplace of the construction of skill-oriented township governments in China, Longgong Township of Qingyuan County and other places have further advanced the “One Post, Dual Capabilities and Two Evaluations” mechanism from a pilot program to in-depth implementation. The evaluation results are not only closely linked to “honors” such as cadres’ selection for awards, but also directly tied to “substantial benefits” such as rank promotion and performance bonuses, thus establishing a mechanism of “project-based practice, data-based evaluation and result-oriented incentives”.
Liandu District has empowered townships with substantive evaluation rights and management suggestion rights over stationed personnel. For “skill pacesetters” who stand out in the “value-added achievement evaluation”, it has carried out vigorous commendations and given priority to their promotion and appointment. For “laid-back” cadres who rank low in the evaluation and fail to fulfill their duties, it has resolutely issued warnings and made adjustments, setting a clear “guideline” that “those who work diligently will be rewarded, and those who make achievements will be given positions”.
In Yunhe County, the emerging low-altitude economy has become a “touchstone” for the incentive mechanism. Fuyun Sub-district has listed “introducing low-altitude economy projects” as a high-difficulty “task list”, and prioritized cadres who successfully introduce such projects as candidates for year-end honors and awards. Cadres have taken the initiative to “tackle tough challenges”, independently studied air traffic control policies and went to Hangzhou to inspect application scenarios of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In the end, the county’s first township-level low-altitude economy entity was launched, and businesses such as photovoltaic panel cleaning and agricultural product hoisting and transportation were quickly rolled out.
Today, Lishui has leveraged the integration of cadres’ skills to drive the transformation of government functions and social coordination, building a skill-based common prosperity ecosystem with “government-enterprise-society” linkage. This has further strengthened the relationship between grassroots cadres and the people, triggering a major transformation in efficiency improvement.
From an inevitable measure to address the “anxiety over insufficient capabilities” to a strategic engine that systematically drives the development of mountainous areas through the “One Post, Dual Capabilities and Two Evaluations” mechanism, Lishui, through its in-depth exploration of “cultivating skilled cadres and building a skill-oriented government” in the new era, has not only transformed the roles and images of cadres, but also reshaped the relationships between the government, the market and society, providing a “Lishui Model” for optimizing grassroots government functions and improving grassroots governance efficiency.