China is taking measures to prevent people who have escaped from poverty from returning to it. Thanks to three decades of effort, the number of rural people who living below the poverty line has been reduced from 250 million in 1978 to 42 million last year.

Nevertheless, due to a poor ecological environment, backward infrastructure, and a high rate of illiteracy, about 10 percent of the people who become better-off because of government aid return to poverty again. The figure can rise to 20 percent in years when severe natural disasters occur.

In Xihaigu in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, one of the eight poorest areas in the country, as much as 50 percent of the people who had become better-off became needy again in recent years.

To curb the reoccurrence of a new-poverty population, the Agricultural Bank of China has issued more than 8 billion yuan in the form of small loans to support 1.3 million households in their fight against poverty.

Meanwhile, over 20 provinces and autonomous regions have also granted small loans to families with financial needs to develop farm and sideline production.

The State Office for Poverty Alleviation and Development has decided to continue to assist those needy counties which had become relatively better-off by offering them a longer period of preferential policies.