China will continue to keep to the path of constructing a
harmonious society via poverty alleviation and eradication efforts
in the 11th five-year-program period that will start next year.
Liu Jian, head of the Leading Group Office of Poverty
Alleviation and Development with the State Council, while
addressing a national forum on poverty reduction and development
held in Dalian, northeast China's Liaoning
Province, on Monday, said the practice of eradicating poverty
through development projects will be continued.
The two targets of the country's poverty eradication endeavor --
the low-income people groups who have not solved the problem of
having enough to eat and wear or who have not stabilized the
situation of having enough to eat and wear -- should be clearly
defined.
A file should be created and kept with detailed information
about each poor family so that all households benefit from the
poverty alleviation programs.
"In accordance with the principle of paying equal emphasis to
the development of natural and human resources, we should value and
solve the training and education of the poor," said Liu.
Efforts should be made to ensure a balanced economic and social
development so as to eradicate poverty in a shorter period of time
and mobilize the whole society to participate in the poverty
alleviation efforts, the official said.
According to Liu, the population of people without enough to eat
or wear in China's rural areas fell from 250 million in 1978 to
26.1 million by late 2004, and the rate of abject poverty also
dropped from 30 percent to 2.8 percent.
(Xinhua News Agency October 19, 2005)