WB Says China, India effectively Eliminate Poverty

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, April 18, 2003

WB Says China, India effectively Eliminate Poverty

China and India have obtained fruitful achievements in eliminating poverty, but huge gaps still exist. During 1990s, the poverty people in the world with a cost of living lower than USD 1 were reduced from 1.3 billion in 1990 to 1.16 billion in 1999.

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During 1990s, the poverty people in the world with a cost of living lower than USD 1 were reduced from 1.3 billion in 1990 to 1.16 billion in 1999. The achievements were mainly obtained in China and India.

On April 13, at the spring conference held by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) the latest report by the World Bank on "World Development Indices 2003" was issued, which praised the fruitful efforts of China and India in reducing a great number of poor people. At the same time, in Eastern Europe and Middle Asia, people living in poverty increased from 6 million to 24 million, in Latin America it saw an increase from 48 million to 57 million, and from 5 to 6 million in Middle East, and in Africa an increase of 241 million to 315 million.

According to the report, so long as the international economic growth won't deviate from the right track, the poverty people in the world will by the time of 2015 decrease to less than half that of 1990, and about 360 million people will be able to shake off poverty. However, by 2015 poverty people in Africa will increase from 315 million in 1999 to 404 million, and in Middle East it will also witness an upward move.

The report of World Bank points out that there are appalling gaps in the living quality between rich and poor countries. In rich countries, the mortality of children under 5 years of age is 7%, while that of poor countries the 121%. In rich countries the mortality for women at childbirth is 0.14%, but that of poor countries is as high as 10%. In rich countries, the goal to popularize elementary education among girls has been realized, but in south Asia and some other areas the situation is backward, only 61 percent of girls have received their elementary education.

There is a chasm in education expenditure between rich and poor countries. Although the annual international public expenditure for education is as high as USD 1.54 trillion, but 85 percent of such capital is invested by rich countries. Per capita education expenditure in rich economic bodies is 28 times that of poor ones.

In the meantime when the health and education expenditures are inadequate, the international military expenditure in 2001 was estimated to make up about 2.3 percent of the total income of the whole world, reaching over 80 billion in US dollars every year. Now, the international per capita military expenditure is USD 137. The estimation is based upon the approved defense budgets, if taken full consideration of the increased expenditure entailed by the "9-11 Incident" and the anti-terrorism war, it will probably see an increase.

By PD Online Staff Liu Wei

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