China's poorest people will all have enough food and clothing by 2010 thanks to a village-based poverty alleviation campaign, according to Liu Jian, director of the State Council's Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, speaking in Beijing yesterday at the International Conference on Poverty Reduction Strategy in the New Millennium.

 

As at the end of 2005, using the national poverty line as a benchmark, there were 23.65 million needy people in China with a per capita annual income below 683 yuan (US$85.4).

 

The UN poverty threshold is surviving on US$1 per capita per day. Applying this standard, there are about 200 million people living in poverty in China.

 

Liu said the government will focus the coming years' poverty-reduction efforts on people living in the poorest 148,000 villages.

 

"We will try hard to develop their ability to work despite the fact that poverty alleviation is getting tougher in China," Liu said.

 

He said at least one laborer from each poor household should get training opportunities in the coming five years and the government will support one or two leading enterprises in each of China's 592 poorest counties in a job creation drive.

 

"We are clear that China faces difficulties and challenges in shaking off poverty," Liu said, "And one major concern is that there might not be a sufficient supply of grain in some poor regions."

 

Statistics indicate that the average annual per capita grain consumption for the country's poor and low-income families is 150 kilograms, the internationally accepted alarm level.

 

A survey conducted by Liu's office found that 36 percent of households in poor villages are short of grain.

 

Meanwhile, research by the China Grain Economy Research Association also indicates that more than half of China's 592 poorest counties have suffered from grain shortages.

 

"(With almost 200 million needy people), the size of the needy population in China is the second largest in the world after India," he added.

 

But he said China was willing to share its experiences with the rest of the world.

 

Its economy grew by 9.4 percent annually from 1978 to 2005, which helped to dramatically reduce the number of poor people.

 

The number of people living in abject poverty fell from 250 million to 23 million in the same period.

 

Meanwhile, the ratio of the very poor compared to the total rural population has fallen from 30.7 percent to just 3.1 percent.

 

Hou Xin'an, assistant Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in China said other countries could share China's experiences in coping with human poverty.

 

"But it is clear that in the new millennium, poverty reduction is turning out to be considerably harder than ever before in China," he said.

 

The UN is concerned that regional disparities and urban-rural differences remain major challenges.

 

The UN has predicted that China will be on track for most of the Millennium Development Goals targets by 2015. However, it might fall short on gender issues, the spread of HIV/AIDS and environmental protection, if adequate measures are not taken.

 

(China Daily May 24, 2006)