World Bank chief says China's poverty reduction effort is historic

WASHINGTON — World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said on Thursday that China's effort to help 800 million people out of poverty is historic.

"This is one of the great stories in human history, frankly," said Kim in a press conference marking the start of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings, when he was asked to comment on China's poverty reduction efforts.

"With evolution of the Chinese economic system and its embrace of the global market, China has lifted over 800 million out of poverty," said the World Bank chief.

With China as the major contributor to the world's poverty reduction progress, the ratio of people living in extreme poverty in the world has dropped to less than 10 percent from 40 percent, said Kim.

"The lessons we learn in China... the fact that 800 million people were lifted out of poverty, the lessons we learned by working in China are very helpful to other middle income countries," said Kim.

According to Kim, the World Bank will continue to work with China in areas, such as healthcare system overhaul and ensuring social services access in distant regions in China.

When asked about China's economic outlook, Kim said that China has been making progress in reducing reliance on investment and exports and focusing on domestic consumption and services sector.

"We're encouraged that China has stayed on a course of this change from what they call rapid growth to more quality economic growth," said Kim.

At the same press conference, IMF chief Christine Lagarde said that the IMF upgraded China's economic outlook in 2017 and 2018 in view of its fiscal stimulus.

"We certainly welcome the decisions that have been made, particularly by the PBOC (China's central bank) to actually tame, reduce credit," said Lagarde.

Lagarde suggested China should continue the policies to rein in credit growth in order to prevent financial risks.