Poverty-stricken county in eye of storm

A county in northeastern Heilongjiang Province, which is the recipient of poverty relief funds, is in the eye of storm after spending millions of yuan from the grant in building a new government office. Hailun is a county-level city rich in agriculture. The local per capita income was 6,695 yuan (1,103 U.S. dollars) in 2010 with year-on-year increase of 19.5 percent. But the city government did not report the progress to the provincial government in order to retain the state allowances, Xinhua news agency reported. Hailun applied for grants under poverty-relief measures in 2010, claiming 17,000 villagers earned no more than 1,300 yuan every year while 70 percent of farmers lived on debts.