The capital of Hubei province has started a program to allow businesses to flourish in run-down and abandoned villages. Zhou Lihua and Liu Kun report from Wuhan, with Chen Mengwei in Beijing.

At a time when large cities are still sucking in rural residents from across the nation, a major city in Central China is working hard to reverse the trend by encouraging people to move to the countryside.

In April, Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, proposed a program - the "20 Golden Terms", as it was dubbed by the media - that would allow urban residents to conduct business in the city's rural areas.