Targeted poverty reduction calls for elaborate work: Xi Jinping

Poverty alleviation calls for clarified responsibilities, precise measures and meticulous efforts especially when it becomes more difficult in its late phase, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Wednesday, urging the country to form a poverty relief mechanism with long-lasting effects.

Xi made the remarks during a panel discussion with deputies from southwestern China's Sichuan Province at the ongoing annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC).

He urged continuous efforts to select qualified village officials, integrate the fund used in agricultural sector, and improve the working ways to ensure better results.

“Precision should be applied to the whole selection process of aid recipient, assistance providers, relief ways as well as quitting approaches,” Xi stressed, adding that it calls for elaborate works.

Prevention of re-impoverishment is as important as poverty alleviation, he underlined, requiring that works should be done to consolidate the achievements for the counties, villages and households that have been already lifted out of poverty.

The country should form a poverty relief mechanism with long-lasting effects and resolutely contain formalism in poverty reduction, the president added.

After a deputy named Luo Yunlian from Ya'an, Sichuan province, which was hit by a severe earthquake in 2013, showed the pictures of the reconstructed disaster-hit region to Xi, he said that he was very pleased to see the city’s rebirth.

NPC deputy Chen Min'er, Secretary of Guizhou Provincial Party Committee and Chairman of the Standing Committee of Guizhou Provincial People's Congress, said that as long as party and government departments, grass-root organizations and social forces can apply a principle of precision in the whole selection process of aid recipient, assistance providers, relief ways as well as quitting approaches, China can win the war on poverty in a scientific and effective manner.

NPC deputy Chen Quanguo, also Secretary of the Party Committee of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, noted that the country should stick to the goal of eliminating poverty before 2020, prevent manipulation of statistics, and punish deception and falsification, so that the poverty relief work can really benefit the public and be testified by history.

In an effort to wipe out poverty, the central departments issued more than 100 policies and action plans in 2016, Liu Yongfu, director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development told a press conference on Tuesday, adding that the fund allocated to poverty alleviation by the central budget has seen a year-on-year increase of 43 percent.

A total of 12.4 million people have been lifted out of poverty in 2016, and more than 2.4 million people have been relocated for poverty reduction, Liu said.

The “targeted poverty alleviation” introduced by China not only improves domestic people's livelihood, but enlightens the world with its experience and accomplishments.

According to the government work report, China will do more in implementing targeted poverty reduction policy. This year, the country will further reduce the number of rural residents living in poverty by over 10 million, including 3.4 million to be relocated from inhospitable areas.