Beijing: Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday
vowed to lift the remaining over 70 million people in the world's second
biggest economy out of poverty by 2020, which amounts to a million
people a month.
Chinese government will enact more support
policies to lift the country's 70 million poor people above the poverty
line by 2020, Xi pledged ahead of the 23rd International Day for the
Eradication of Poverty on Saturday.
Chinese government will enact more
support policies to lift the country's 70 million poor people above the
poverty line by 2020, Xi pledged ahead of the 23rd International Day for
the Eradication of Poverty on Saturday.
Addressing
the Global Poverty Reduction and Development Forum in Beijing, Xi said
China will work to fight the hard battle against poverty.
In his
speech, Xi drew on his personal experience in the 1960s working as a
farmer in a small village in northwestern Shaanxi Province, where he was
struck by the poor living conditions in rural China.
In the past
15 years, China has lifted more than 600 million people out of poverty,
accounting for about 70 per cent of those brought out of poverty
worldwide, Hong Tianyun, deputy director of the State Council Leading
Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development of China told the
media.
Despite this, China still has 70.17 million people in the
countryside living below the country's poverty line of 2,300 yuan (USD
376) in annual income at the end of 2014.
It was the first
developing country to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
target of reducing the population living in poverty by half ahead of the
2015 deadline.
"Despite the achievements, China remains the
world's biggest developing country, and narrowing the urban-rural gap
remains a big challenge for us," Xi said.
Xi said poverty alleviation will be a major part of China's post-2015 agenda, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
While
striving to reduce poverty at home, China has also actively supported
the cause in other developing countries. Over the past 60 years, China
has provided 166 countries and international organisations with nearly
400 billion yuan (USD 66 billion) in assistance.
China has
unconditionally forgiven mature inter-governmental interest-free loans
held by heavily-indebted developing countries seven times, the report
said.
The goal of eliminating poverty in 15 years was laid out at a
United Nations summit last month and China pledged an initial USD 2
billion to establish an assistance fund to help developing nations fight
poverty.
In a video message for today's forum, UN Secretary-
General Ban Ki-moon also praised China's remarkable achievements in
poverty alleviation.
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