SCIO briefing on China's poverty reduction progress

Xi Yanchun:

Thank you, Mr. Liu. Now let's move to the question session. Please identify your media outlet before stating your question.

Phoenix TV:

You just now mentioned some places with high incidence of poverty such as the Tibet Autonomous Region, the Tibetan area in Sichuan Province, and four prefectures in the south of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Do you have any poverty-relief measures focusing on those deeply impoverished areas? Thank you.

Liu Yongfu:

As I just said, the goal for alleviating poverty by 2020 will be definitely achieved. However, the difficulty lies in the deeply-impoverished areas in ethnic minority-dominated areas on China's borders, such as Tibet and south Xinjiang. Due to longstanding historical problems, those areas, with less desirable conditions, are more likely to be poor and distressed. Six provinces and provincial-level regions are home to over 3 million poor people, and five provinces or provincial-level regions have an incidence of poverty over 10 percent. According to the progress made in poverty alleviation in past years, without reinforced efforts, those areas will find it hard to achieve the expected goal. Therefore, the CPC Central Committee has hosted a seminar on poverty alleviation for deeply-impoverished areas and drawn up corresponding documents and measures to deal with the issue.

First, the CPC Central Committee will give top priority to those areas in poverty alleviation efforts and enhance various financing and policy measures.

Second, various departments and agencies are expected to play their specific roles in poverty alleviation. For example, the transport department needs to build more roads and the department responsible for water resources needs to solve problems with the supply of safe drinking water.

Third, provincial-level governments must take full responsibility in solving the specific problems facing the deeply-impoverished areas.

Each area has its own special conditions. Besides those poor areas I mentioned just now, each province and provincial-level region also have relatively serious impoverished areas. With provincial governments taking full responsibility, they can identify their own impoverished counties, towns and villages and work out new policy measures to deal with specific problems there. Thank you.