China's Anti-poverty War Needs Policy Support: Official

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, December 13, 2002

China's Anti-poverty War Needs Policy Support: Official

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China should implement effective economic and social policies to combat urban poverty as well as offering material aid and money, Yang Yanyin, Vice-Minister of Civil Affairs, said in Beijing Thursday.

Yang was speaking at the opening of a two-day workshop on countering urban poverty co-initiated by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

She said urban poverty, a problem that mushroomed as China shifted to a market economy and enjoyed rapid economic development,could not be solved by national economic growth alone.

"We should also give the urban poor an equal chance to participate in social and economic activities and help them survive in the competitive market economy," she said.

Poverty used to be a rural problem in China before 1990, when only two percent of the country's urban population, about four million people, were categorized as poor.

However, more and more urban dwellers became poverty-stricken when the country restructured its industries, socialized its welfare system and tailored the resources allocation mechanism to market demand.

Official statistics showed that this year 19.85 million urban people received the minimum living subsidy, costing the governmenta record 10.5 billion yuan (1.3 billion US dollars).

Yang Yiyong, vice-director with the Economic Institute under the State Development Planning Commission, said material aid and money met only food and basic living costs, but could not free them from poverty.

Vice-minister Yang said the government and society should help urban poor shake off poverty by creating more jobs in the short term.

In a long-term, Yang said, the country should adopt a fairer income distribution system while maintaining sustained economic growth.

To build a well-off society in an all-round way, the country must guarantee that poor people's needs for basic living were satisfied and every member of society could benefit from the country's economic development on an equal basis, she said.

She also said the urban poor should be encouraged to overcome their difficulties by exploiting their own potential.

Macleod Nyirongo, senior deputy resident representative of the United Nations Development Program, said the Minimum Living Standard Scheme was still a relatively new practice in China, so "a more comprehensive framework governing its implementation is necessary".

Nyirongo said the assistance of the minimum living subsidy should not only address income poverty, but also other poverty components such as health and education as well as incentives for the temporary poor to re-enter the work force.

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