So the question that immediately arose was how to equip the children currently living there to take jobs in cities and towns, he said.

"They need education and you need to prepare to invest in schooling, and help those people get the sort of grounding that enables them to work in a secondary industry or service industry," Hope said.

"It's not enough to simply say we are going to stuff the universities full," said Hope. "You need more efficient investment and education that is high quality and produces people who can contribute positively."

Hope's experience taught him it would not be easy. He said he used to squabble with Chinese officials on planning commissions over the allocation of funds.

"In some of the projects in rural China where we were lending concessional funds, my position was that at least 50 percent of the money had to be spent on education and health," said Hope. But the planning commission would want to spend it on roads and the industries that might be successful.

It takes a long time to see the rewards of investment in education and local governments are more concerned with GDP growth, said Li. "So it depends on the central government's efforts to improve education, not the local governments'," he said.

Reallocation of jobs complemented by better education can raise the productivity of the workforce, according to Hope.

China has an enormous number of people in rural areas and a lot of rural workers are moving to the manufacturing and service industry, but the potential for increase in productivity in agriculture is still huge, he said.

"There are plenty of people to be released to more productive employment opportunities," he said.

Contact the writer at liazhu@chinadailyusa.com.