Guizhou sees GDP growth as poverty killer

Guizhou province will set its average annual economic growth target at around 10 percent for the next five years as part of an effort to pull more than 3.7 million people out of poverty by 2020, the province's top official said on Sunday.

Chen Miner, Party chief of Guizhou, said the province aims to increase its GDP to 2 trillion yuan ($290 billion) by 2021.

Guizhou has pulled nearly 7.8 million people out of poverty in the past five years, but there are still 3.72 million living under the poverty line of 2,300 yuan in annual income in its rural areas, Chen said in a report to the 12th Communist Party of China Guizhou Provincial Congress.

Guizhou is home to the largest poverty-stricken population among the country's 34 provincial regions, making poverty alleviation there a "key concern" in China's effort to build a moderately prosperous society by 2020, Chen said.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, there are still 43.35 million people living below the poverty line nationwide, despite the country having lifted 12.4 million rural residents out of poverty in 2016.

Chen vowed to boost poverty relief in Guizhou by accurately identifying poverty-stricken people and assessing how they can be elevated.

Xie Yi, a researcher at the Guizhou Academy of Social Sciences, said the province can achieve its economic growth rate target with strong support from the central government. The growth rate offers a solid foundation to help alleviate poverty, and it goes hand in hand with job creation, he said.

Xie said many people in poverty need to be relocated from inhabitable areas, and it's important to offer them employment afterward so they remain out of poverty.

Guizhou plans to relocate about 752,000 residents this year - from 3,603 mountain villages to relatively prosperous towns with better living conditions, according to the provincial government.