Poverty reduction highlights China's progress in human rights: white paper

INT'L COOPERATION DEEPENED

While combating poverty at home, China also actively helps other developing countries to address their poverty problems. Over more than six decades since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, China has provided nearly 400 billion yuan to 166 countries and international organizations, sent more than 600,000 aid workers, given medical assistance to 69 countries, and aided more than 120 developing countries in realizing the Millennium Goals, said the paper.

In addition, on seven occasions China has unconditionally canceled interest-free loans to heavily indebted countries and least developed countries, said the paper.

The white paper said that China will strengthen exchanges and cooperation with developing countries and international organizations in the fields of poverty alleviation and human rights.

The country will share advanced concepts and experience in those fields through foreign aid, project cooperation, technology transfer and think-tank exchanges, said the paper.

China's poverty-reduction commitment embodies its sense of responsibility to the world as a major country, the paper noted.

The document said that China will continue to honor international obligations commensurate with the state and status of its own development.

The UN Millennium Development Goals Report 2015 shows that the proportion of people living in extreme poverty in China fell by half from 61 percent in 1990 to below 30 percent in 2002, and on down to 4.2 percent in 2014, said the white paper.

MORE TO BE DONE

China has entered the crucial stage of poverty reduction as the fight against poverty remains tough despite remarkable achievements in the past, according to the white paper.

The country still has a large population living in profound poverty and the sulutions to their problems are becoming increasingly costly and complex, said the white paper.

"This will prove a hard nut to crack," the white paper said, referring to the country's poverty reduction task in future.

Most of them live in extreme poverty and have weak capacity for development, while the time pressure is huge for China to accomplish its target of lifting all the poor out of poverty by 2020, the paper said.

Moreover, a large number of those who just escaped poverty can be pushed back into it as a result of natural disaters, illness, or high costs of education, marriage and housing, according to the paper.

To eradicate poverty by 2020, China has pledged to lift 10 million people out of poverty every year from 2016 through developing specialty industries, transfer employment, relocation and social security coverage.

The central government will continue to increase transfer payments to impoverished areas and ensure substantial growth in its funding for poverty alleviation, said the paper.

Investments within the central budget will be tilted in support of the poor, the white paper noted.