China to raise over half of impoverished counties out of poverty by year’s end

By Zhao Yongping People’s Daily app

18:15, December 14, 2018(GTM +8)

More than 700 million Chinese farmers have been lifted out of dire poverty over the last 40 years, according to China’s State Council Information Office at its regular press conference on December 13.

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A mother and her girl pick tea leaves in a village in Guangyuan, Sichuan Province, on March 25, 2018. Tea industry contributes a lot to poverty alleviation in the region. (Photo: VCG)

By the end of this year, the number of Chinese grappling with extreme poverty will drop by 85 percent from six years ago, said Liu Yongfu, director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.

He said that the number of impoverished counties will drop by more than 430 from the current figure of 832 by the end of the year, while nearly 100,000 out of 128,000 villages will be pulled out of poverty.

Liu said that in the future, greater efforts will be put on targeting poverty alleviation in 334 extremely impoverished counties in the Tibet and Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous regions, and Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.

(Compiled by Li Yan)