China removes all 832 impoverished counties from poverty list

By Gu Zhongyang, Su Bin, Shi Yaqiao, People’s Daily

The last 9 impoverished counties of China, all in southwest province of Guizhou, have eliminated absolute poverty, the provincial government announced Monday.

So far, all 66 impoverished counties in the province, which had the highest number of impoverished people in China, have shaken off poverty. This also means that China has removed all its 832 impoverished counties nationwide from the poverty list.DSX

Since 2012, the province has lifted a total of 9.23 million people out of poverty, or over one million each year, ranking the first in the country.

To ensure on-time poverty eradication, the Communist Party of China Guizhou Provincial Committee, as well as the provincial government made early and detailed plans and cracked the hard nuts in transportation, water supply, electricity, education, health care and communication in impoverished regions. Compulsory education, basic medical care, and housing have been generally guaranteed.

This year, the province enhanced its poverty alleviation efforts in the 9 counties that were still in poverty, as well 3 counties (districts) that each had over 10,000 impoverished people, which further promoted the province’s eradication of absolute poverty.

Though Guizhou has eliminated poverty in all counties, the province will keep consolidating its poverty reduction efforts. It will dock its poverty alleviation efforts with rural vitalization and improve the mechanisms to prevent any return to poverty, so as to ensure that the poverty reduction results can withstand the test of history and the people.

In 2014, the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development identified 832 counties in 22 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities as impoverished. They have been gradually lifted out of poverty two years later. Since the end of last year, some provinces have removed all remaining counties from poverty list.

Last December, Tibet autonomous region announced that all of its impoverished counties had shaken off poverty, followed by Chongqing, Heilongjiang, Shaanxi, Henan, Hainan, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia autonomous region and Hunan that claimed so in February and March this year. They were later joined by Jilin, Qinghai, Jiangxi, Anhui, and Hubei. This month, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous county, Yunnan, Ningxia, Sichuan, Guangxi, Gansu and Guizhou announced that they had removed all remaining counties from poverty list.