China Set to Hit Target of Eliminating Poverty

“Since the early 1980s, 800 million people have been lifted out of poverty in China,” said Bert Hofman, the World Bank’s Country Director for China, Mongolia and Korea. “At present, the country has a relatively low poverty share of 55 million people according to the local poverty calculation. However, the proportion is even lower when measured by international standards. So China is a very successful example in this regard.”

The World Bank and Alibaba sign an agreement in October 2016 on cooperative research into the Taobao village phenomenon in efforts to discover why some villages are successful and others are not.

The World Bank released a new report on global poverty reduction last October before the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, 2016. “This report focuses on poverty reduction and shared prosperity,” Mr. Hofman explained. “Both poverty reduction and equality are goals of the World Bank. Poverty reduction is also an important part of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.” He went on to say: “Poverty alleviation has done very well over the last 25 years. In 1990, about 35 percent of the world’s population was below the international poverty line, but today it is less than 10 percent. China has been playing a key role in this respect.”