Big fund launched in drive to tackle poverty
Print Edition
CHINA launched an industrial investment fund yesterday to boost the economic development of poverty-stricken areas.
This is a crucial stage in the fight against poverty, which remains a tough issue despite remarkable achievements so far, according to a white paper. Fifty-one state-owned enterprises, including the State Development and Investment Corp and the State Grid, were among the first group of central government-owned enterprises to commit to funding the project.
The first-phase funding totaled 12.2 billion yuan (US$1.8 billion). It will be gradually increased to 100 billion yuan, according to the SDIC.
The fund will invest in resource exploitation, industrial park construction and urbanization in very poor areas to advance regional industrial development, said SDIC Chairman Wang Huisheng. Fourteen poor regions including old revolutionary bases, and minority and border areas are priorities for investment, said Wang.
More than 600 million Chinese are estimated to have been lifted out of poverty over the past three decades — about 70 percent of the global total. China became the first developing country to meet the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.
The government has named poverty reduction as a key priority over the coming years, pledging to help the remaining estimated 70 million people living below the poverty line of 2,300 yuan in annual income to rise up the income ladder and enjoy essential social services by 2020.
With a large population still living in profound poverty, solutions to their problems are becoming increasingly costly and complex, stated the white paper titled “China’s Progress in Poverty Reduction and Human Rights.”
“This will prove a hard nut to crack,” the white paper said.
Moreover, a large number of people living just above the poverty line could be pushed back into it as a result of natural disasters, illness, or issues involving education, marriage and housing, the paper warned.
China aims to lift 10 million people out of poverty every year from this year through developing specialty industries, transferring employment, relocation and social security coverage.
According to the UN, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty in China fell from 61 percent in 1990 to 4.2 percent in 2014.
The State Council Information Office stated that the central government has injected 83.1 billion yuan in renovating schools for compulsory education and earmarked 14 billion yuan to build dormitory buildings for some 300,000 teachers in remote rural areas.
In less-developed central and western China, the number of children enrolled in kindergartens rose from 21.5 million in 2011 to 27.8 million in 2015.
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