China Helps 80 million People Out of Poverty in 7 Years

China has basically achieved its goal of reducing the poor population by 80 million in the last seven years, according to a press conference held Tuesday by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.

Gao Hongbin, director of the office, told the conference that at the end of 2000, the number of rural poor in China who were inadequately fed and clothed declined to 30 million, accounting for approximately 3 percent of the rural population.

Gao said, "In the poor counties under the national poverty line, economic development has advanced in stride with economic indicators higher than the national average."

According to the statistics provided by the office, the agricultural output value increased by 54 percent since the year of 1994, representing an annual growth rate of 7.5 percent; industrial output value shot up by 99.3 percent, averaging annual growth of 12.2 percent; local financial revenue nearly doubled; grain output grew at 1.9 percent annually; per capita net annual income of farmers increased from 684 yuan (82 U.S. dollars) to 1337 yuan (161 U.S. dollars), with an annual growth rate of 12.8 percent.

Thanks to the fast development, production and living conditions have improved dramatically, said the director.

During the past seven years, some 592 poor countries developed 60.12 million-mu of farm land, built 320,000-km roads and installed 360,000-km power transmission and distribution lines. A total of 53.51 million people and 48.36 million animals now have access to enough water supply.

Statistics show that almost 95.5 percent of rural villages have access to eclectricity. Roads, postal service and telephones are accessible to 89 percent, 69 percent and 67.7 percent of all villages respectively.

Priorities for Poverty Reduction

China will give priority to four categories of areas in its poverty reduction efforts in the next ten years.

The four include ethnic minority-inhabited areas, those that used to be old revolutionary bases, border areas and some destitute poor areas in central and western China where poor people concentrate, according to Gao Hongbin, director of the State Council's Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.

China will push forward the continuous and arduous work of poverty reduction in early years of the new century, he said here Tuesday at a press conference held by Information Office of the State Council.

A list of counties with heavy tasks of poverty reduction will be selected from the above four categories of poor areas as the key targeted areas, he said.

The central government will enhance its support to these counties for them to develop agriculture and animal husbandry based on market needs and combined with economic restructuring in an effort to generate more income for the poor.

Meanwhile, all these rural areas should develop science and technology, education, culture and health to facilitate all-round social progress.

Gao said Chinese government will increasingly expand poverty reduction funds and use them more efficiently.

However, most of the eastern provinces with relatively developed economies will have to mainly rely on themselves to help their own poor people get out of poverty, the official said.

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