Farmer workers get busy planting melon seedlings at the Zhiyun Cooperative in Xinyang village on March 10. [Photo/ntfabu.com]

Joint efforts are being made by villages in Qidong – a county-level city administered by Nantong in East China's Jiangsu province – with companies to pursue rural development, in what is being seen as a new way towards achieving rural prosperity.

The city is reportedly responding to the province's call to promote enterprise-village co-construction and currently has 253 related projects on the go.

The latest data from the Qidong Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau showed that the city ranked first in the areas under the prefecture-level city of Nantong last year, in terms of completion of enterprise-village joint construction projects.

Qidong also signed 15 formal letters of intent with Guannan county in Jiangsu province to develop the North-South joint construction projects, including one investment project and 10 agricultural product purchase and sales projects.

The Zhiyun Cooperative, one of the co-construction projects in Qidong, has planted melon seedlings over 21.33 hectares of land in Xinyang village, Jinhai town.

It has set up sales channels to Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan and the annual output value is estimated to reach 4.5 million yuan ($692,100), expected to bring in annual revenue of more than 800,000 yuan.