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40 million struggle with poverty in China
By Zhao Chunzhe (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-12-28 14:50
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About forty million farmers in China still live under the poverty line, web portal ifeng.com reported, citing comments from Fan Xiaojian, the head of China’s national poverty and development office. A farmer is considered to be living in poverty if they make less than 1,196 yuan ($175) annually.
Fan said the global financial crisis has hit the poor hard as well, and estimated that there are another 100 million people living in poverty globally now as a result of the economic downturn.
“China has invested 20 billion yuan ($2.9 billion) to reduce poverty this year, an increase of three billion yuan ($439 million) from last year, and the largest investment in poverty-relief in the last ten years,” he said.
In China, however, Fan said the income of the most poverty-stricken counties has increased by 9.6 percent in the first three quarters of this year. That is 0.4 percent above the average increase in rural areas, he added.
China is the first developing country to reduce the UN Millennium Development Goal of reducing the number of its people living in poverty by half.
