China to eliminate poverty by 2020

China is working towards the elimination of absolute poverty by the year 2020.

The target is to ensure food security in the next two years and enhance the livelihood of some 30 million rural poor by 2020, Ms Xu Liping, Research Office, International Poverty Reduction Centre, China, has said at a seminar for selected media practitioners from Ghana in China.

She said in the past five years, poverty was reduced among 66 million rural poor, with the country’s poor population going down by a two-third percentage.

Ms Liping said the current economic growth had changed poverty distribution from widespread poverty to concentration in 14 areas, especially the western part of the country.

She said poverty reduction offices had therefore been established across the country to identify poor households, develop anti-poverty measures and assign work teams to help poor households “escape” poverty.

Ms Liping said a total of 428 poverty stricken counties (provinces) were on e-commerce pilot and others being relocated to enhance their lots.

She said research showed that the poor in China were usually the aged, the sick, people living with disability, illiterates, among others.

Ms Liping said after 2020, the country would develop an “accurate” poverty reduction strategy to uplift the living conditions of the urban poor.

She said immediate challenges to poverty eradication in China were natural disasters and the increasing gap between the rich and the poor.

Source: GNA