Xi calls for fulfilling poverty fight goal

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, president, and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attends deliberations with National People's Congress deputies from Gansu province in Beijing on Thursday. WANG YE / XINHUA

President warns of bureaucracy, slackened effort in relief missions

President Xi Jinping called on Thursday for strong confidence and all-around effort to achieve the ambitious goal of eliminating poverty in China by 2020.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remark while attending a panel discussion with deputies to the National People's Congress from Gansu province.

Xi said that since the Party's 18th National Congress in late 2012, the CPC Central Committee has put poverty reduction work in a prominent place in the governance of China.

The Party has set the goal of lifting all the country's rural impoverished people out of poverty by 2020, which will be the first time in thousands of years of Chinese history that extreme poverty has been eliminated.

Noting that the task of poverty elimination will be extremely arduous in the next two years, Xi called for strong confidence, firm determination, all-around efforts and targeted measures to ensure the achievement of the poverty elimination goal.

The standard for poverty reduction is to ensure that poor people have access to food and clothes and that they are covered by the basic public services of medicine, education and housing, Xi said.

The president warned officials against formalism and bureaucracy in poverty alleviation work, and he said they should not cheat in reporting their progress in poverty reduction.

Xi instructed Party committees and governments at all levels to shoulder their responsibilities and implement the strategy of tailored measures for poverty alleviation.

The officials must improve their work style and never slacken in poverty alleviation work, Xi said, calling for pragmatic efforts to ensure the fulfillment of the goal.

Xi pledged to fight corruption and enhance Party building in poverty reduction work. Officials who get down to the grassroots in their poverty reduction work should be complimented, he said.

The president encouraged all the people to have great enthusiasm and work hard to achieve the goal of eliminating poverty as planned.

During the discussion, eight NPC deputies spoke on such issues as protecting the environment, supporting the development of private companies, reducing poverty and boosting opening-up.

Xi recognized the efforts made by Gansu province.

He encouraged the local government to deepen reform and opening-up, promote new driving forces for economic growth and enhance environmental protection to bring more prosperity to the province.