China.org.cn | March 14, 2020
CRNTT:
At present, there are still 52 poverty-stricken counties and 5 million people who have not been lifted out of poverty. With less than 10 months to go before winning the battle against poverty, how can we ensure that these remaining people will get out of poverty? Thank you.
Liu Yongfu:
52 counties, 2,707 villages and 5.51 million people have not been lifted out of poverty, but it is our task to accomplish by the end of this year. At the beginning of our fight against poverty, we advanced our work as a whole. Later, we found that it's more difficult in those deeply impoverished areas. On June 23, 2017, General Secretary Xi Jinping presided over a symposium on poverty alleviation in deeply impoverished areas held in Taiyuan of Shanxi province, which determined the "three regions" (Tibet, the four prefectures of Hotan, Aksu, Kashgar, and Kizilsu in southern Xinjiang, and the ethnic Tibetan areas in Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu, and Qinghai) and the "three prefectures" (Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan, Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan, and Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu) as the focus of our work. Besides the "three regions and three prefectures," 169 crucial poverty-stricken counties have been designated as the focus of our work. We have increased support and intensified our work in those areas. By the end of last year, 52 poverty-stricken counties, 2,707 poverty-stricken villages and 5.51 million people were still living in poverty. General Secretary Xi Jinping has required that 1,113 villages, out of the 2,707 villages in these 52 counties, should be put under supervision, which is actually a step forward in deepening our poverty relief work. The seven provincial-level regions involved are required to formulate implementation plans, and all counties and villages are required to formulate specific plans so as to accomplish the task of poverty alleviation.
For example, the "three regions and three prefectures" recorded 5.32 million poor people in 2013. After the Taiyuan Symposium, we formulated an implementation plan for poverty alleviation in deeply impoverished areas. It was a three-year plan to be conducted from 2018 until 2020. By the end of last year, 85% of the task had been completed, and 95% of the funds were in place, which was close to completion. In 2013, the number of poor people was 5.32 million, and the incidence of poverty was 25.5%. By the end of 2017, when the plan was formulated, this number had been brought down to 3.05 million. After two years, there are still 430,000 people living in poverty, and the incidence of poverty has dropped to 2%. The rate of decline in deeply impoverished areas is faster than that in western China. From 2013 to 2017, the incidence of poverty fell by 11 percentage points, and by 12.6 percentage points in the following two years. The speed is accelerating. Therefore, we firmly believe that these 52 counties and more than 1,100 villages, with more support and work following this method, will be able to get rid of poverty by the end of this year. Thank you.