According to local sources, the increased funding is specially allocated to allow distribution of the minimum subsistence guarantee fund among low-income residents riddled with financial difficulties in the province's 14 cities.

Situated on the south China coast, Guangdong was chosen to pilot the country's reform and opening-up drive in 1978. Since then it has become prosperous through expanding its export-oriented economy, especially in the Pearl River Delta.

However residents in the province's northern, western and eastern parts have remained poor.

An official with the provincial civil affairs bureau of Guangdong said this year's total minimum subsistence guarantee fund stands at 226 million yuan, which will provide 700,000 impoverished residents a guaranteed minimum living allowance.

The province's minimum subsistence guarantee program covered 427,000 of the province's poor last year, with the distribution of300 million yuan province-wide, helping an additional 80,000 people during 2000, said the official.

As the economy is being developed in China, disadvantaged groups of people, including the impoverished, are getting more attention from government agencies at all levels throughout the country.

(eastday.com January 24, 2002)