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East China's Zhejiang to Shed Poverty in Rural Areas
East China's Zhejiang Province, which has reported fast economic growth in recent years, aims to lift all its poor farmers out of poverty in 2002.
The coastal province has led Chinese provinces and autonomous regions in terms of poverty-reduction efforts. Its eight poorest counties shook off poverty in 1998. Last year, its impoverished population was down from 2.7 million in the early 1990s to 500,000. The poor now make up 1.6 percent of Zhejiang's rural population, sharply down from the previous 7.6 percent.
Sources from the provincial government said they will do more to help target disadvantaged groups in remote areas, including the aged, the destitute and the disabled.
"To help them does not simply mean to provide them with food and clothing," said Zhang Mengjin, vice governor of Zhejiang. "We will start up some profitable industries in the poor areas and help the farmers find employment opportunities," he said.
He said the fast economic growth in the cities and the urbanization process in the outskirts have provided job opportunities for the redundant labors in the countryside, where farmers have virtually no access to traffic, water, education and medical and communication services.
In another development, the province will lift some 60,000 disabled out of poverty this year, according to Zhejiang Disabled Persons' Federation.
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