Lifting 70 million out of poverty will be a challenge

Caption: Han Baojiang at a press salon held by the All-China Journalism Association on Nov 11. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn]

Lifting 70.17 million impoverished people out of poverty in the next five years to realize an overall well-off society by 2020 is a tough job for the Chinese government, says a professor with the top Party school, a key training center for senior officials.

"Most of the remaining people in poverty have special difficulties, like harsh natural environment conditions, or else they wouldn't still be in poverty after so many years of development,"said Han Baojiang, deputy director of the Economics Department of the Party School, at a press salon held by the All-China Journalism Association on Nov 11.

China has 14 contiguous poor areas and 592 key counties for national poverty alleviation and development, according to Xu Shaoshi, director of National Development and Reform Commission.

It's been almost 30 years since 1987, when China brought up the plan of helping the poor. Since then the nation has lifted more than 700 million people out of poverty.

As said in the 13th Five-Year Plan, a blueprint of the nation's economic development in the five years between 2016 and 2020, China will lift the remaining 70.17 million people out of poverty and realize an overall well-off society by 2020.

"Common prosperity is what Chinese people pursue. If any of the impoverished people are still stuck in poverty, then the objective is not achieved,"Han said, adding that reducing poverty and developing rural areas are the most important and challenging tasks facing China now.

For a country like China, it's easy to lift a group of people out of poverty by giving them money, but China insists on developing the local economy so as to give the poor a capability for self-development, Han said.

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime,"Han added.

Earlier this year, President Xi Jinping said in a senior forum on poverty reduction and economic development that China will continue to be based on local environmental conditions and individual conditions to support the poor people through production and employment support, relocation, ecological and environmental protection, education and minimum living security.

"Although it's tough, I'm still confident that we can achieve the objective of lifting all the poor people out of poverty by 2020 with thorough efforts,"Han said.