Over 80 million people lifted out of poverty in China in past six years
By
Gu Zhongyang and Yu Jingxian from People’s Daily
China
has lifted 82.39 million people out of poverty over the past six years, cutting
the poverty headcount ratio to 1.7 percent from 10.2 percent, according to the
State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.
The
office also indicated that the country’s three-year action plan on poverty
alleviation got off to a good start. China lifted 13.86 million people out of
poverty in 2018, lowering poverty headcount ratio by 1.4 percentage points from
the year before. Over 10 million people were lifted out of poverty each year
from 2013 to 2018.
China
has made solid progress in poverty alleviation in areas of extreme poverty. In
2018, the country allocated an additional 12 billion yuan of poverty
alleviation fund, or 60 percent of its additional fund in this aspect, to
“three regions and three prefectures,” which include Tibet Autonomous Region,
Tibetan regions in four provinces, southern parts of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous
Region, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province, Nujiang Lisu
Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan province, and Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture
in Gansu province.
More
focus has been put on deeply impoverished areas, including abreakthrough collaboration
on poverty alleviation between the eastern and western regions, the “pairing
assistance” program that allows rich regions of the country to offer financial
and personnel support to extremely impoverished regions, and assigning
officials from central government departments to designated rural areas for
targeted poverty alleviation
An
estimated 1.3 million people in the “three regions and three prefectures” got
rid of poverty in 2018, with the poverty headcount ratio dropping 6.4
percentage points, 3.3 percentage points higher than the average decline in the
western region. An estimated 4.8 million people in 334 deeply impoverished
counties were lifted out of poverty in the same year.
Last
year, 9 provinces and cities in east China provided financial assistance of
17.7 billion yuan and donations of 4.8 billion yuan from all sectors of society
to impoverished western regions, and helped 1.44 million people escape from
poverty by means of employment transfer.
A
range of major poverty alleviation measures have been implemented, including
poverty alleviation by fostering distinctive industries, advancing relocation,
carrying out ecological restoration, strengthening education and improving
social security.
The
country has focused efforts on supporting poor farmers in poverty-stricken
areas through fostering planting and breeding industries. It has made great progress
in reducing poverty by promoting photovoltaic power facilities and e-commerce,
and improved the mechanism of helping impoverished households reduce poverty.
By
means of employment transfer, the country created employment
opportunities for 2.59 million people in 2018. It established more
than 30,000 poverty alleviation workshops, helping 770,000 registered impoverished
people get employed in areas closer to their home.
The
country has improved the basic conditions of poorly built and low performing
rural schools providing compulsory education in poor areas, and made greater
efforts to control the proportion of children dropping out of school.
Poverty
alleviation through medical security has also been implemented. The program to
provide medical treatment to impoverished people with serious diseases in rural
areas was expanded to cover 21 kinds of diseases and over 10 million poor
people have received treatment. China has further reduced the ratio of
self-paid health care costs for poor patients, and improved medical treatment
conditions in poor areas.
In
addition, more than 500,000 people living under China's poverty line have been
employed as government-paid forest rangers through ecological poverty-relief
programs.
China
will beat poverty with precision poverty alleviation in 2019. The country will
be committed to ensuring that the impoverished rural people have stable access
to adequate food and clothing, compulsory education, basic medical services and
housing, and to achieving indices of major basic public services close to the
national average level.
The
country will intensify poverty alleviation in areas of extreme poverty like the
“three regions and three prefectures” and ensure social safeguards for the most
vulnerable groups.
This
year, over 10 million people will be lifted out of poverty and around 300
impoverished counties are expected to get rid of poverty, said Liu
Yongfu, director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty
Alleviation and Development.
Women in Yangchuan Industrial Park, Suiyang
county, Zunyi of southwest China’s
Guizhou province make embroidery pieces, March 16, 2019. In recent years, the
development of hand-embroidered products in the county has become a major
measure for rural women to get rid of poverty. The traditionally pure manual
work has been transformed into semi-mechanized and large-scale production, with
a variety of new products popular in the market introduced, including
embroidered medicine pillows, embroidered medicine pads, and sachets. (Photo
from People’s
Daily Online)
Over 80 million people lifted out of poverty in China in past six years
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