China has lifted 82.39 million people out of poverty over the past six years.
The country's State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development has released the figures, happy the three-year action plan on poverty alleviation started well.
China lifted 13.86m people out of poverty in 2018, with over 10m people similarly lifted out of poverty each year from 2013 to 2018.
Extreme poverty has been a focus. In 2018, the country allocated an additional 12 billion yuan of poverty alleviation fund, or 60 per cent of its additional fund in this aspect, to "three regions and three prefectures," – including Tibet Autonomous Region, Tibetan regions in four provinces, southern parts of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province, Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan province, and Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu province.
Action in deeply impoverished areas included:
• A breakthrough collaboration on poverty alleviation between the eastern and western regions
• The "pairing assistance" programme allowing rich regions of the country to offer financial and personnel support to extremely impoverished regions
• Assigning officials from central government departments to designated rural areas for targeted poverty alleviation.
An estimated 1.3m people in the "three regions and three prefectures" got rid of poverty in 2018, while an estimated 4.8m people in 334 deeply impoverished counties were lifted out of poverty in the same year.
Last year, nine provinces and cities in east China provided financial assistance of 17.7 billion yuan and donations of 4.8 billion yuan from all sectors of society to impoverished western regions, and helped 1.44 million people escape from poverty by means of employment transfer.
Major poverty alleviation measures implemented, include poverty alleviation by fostering distinctive industries, advancing relocation, carrying out ecological restoration, strengthening education and improving social security.
The country has focused efforts on supporting poor farmers in poverty-stricken areas through fostering planting and breeding industries. It has made great progress in reducing poverty by promoting photovoltaic power facilities and e-commerce, and improved the mechanism of helping impoverished households reduce poverty.
Employment opportunities for 2.59m people in 2018 were established by jobs transfer and more than 30,000 poverty alleviation workshops were created , helping 770,000 registered impoverished people find work areas closer to their home.
The country has improved the basic conditions of poorly built and low performing rural schools providing compulsory education in poor areas, and made greater efforts to control the proportion of children dropping out of school.
Poverty alleviation through medical security has also been implemented. The programme to provide medical treatment to impoverished people with serious diseases in rural areas was expanded to cover 21 kinds of diseases and over 10mn poor people have received treatment.
China has further reduced the ratio of self-paid health care costs for poor patients, and improved medical treatment conditions in poor areas. In addition, more than 500,000 people living under China's poverty line have been employed as government-paid forest rangers through ecological poverty-relief programmes.
This year, over 10m more people and 300 impoverished counties are expected to get rid of poverty, said Liu Yongfu, director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.
Content sourced from the People's Daily Online here