Bo Yibo[Xinhua]

Senior politician Bo Yibo, who served in several key posts including vice-premier and deputy head of the former CPC Central Advisory Committee, has died at the age of 99, according to an official statement yesterday.

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Bo died of illness at 8:30 pm on Monday in Beijing, it said.

It described Bo as "an excellent CPC member, a great Communist warrior, a great proletarian revolutionary and a prominent leader in the Party's economic work."

Born in Shanxi Province in 1908, Bo joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) at the age of 17 and lived to be the Party's oldest member.

After New China was founded in 1949, Bo led the country's economic efforts and was later elected honorary president of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.

Related comment: Bo a man of vision The death of Bo Yibo, the last surviving founder of the People's Republic, is symbolic of the completion of China's leadership succession.

Bo, the father of Commerce Minister Bo Xilai, was the last of the "Eight Immortals", the group of revolutionary veterans who included Deng Xiaoping, and led China through the launch of economic reforms in the 1970s and 1980s.

The other "immortals" were former presidents Yang Shangkun and Li Xiannian, economic planner Chen Yun, army general Song Renqiong and senior Party figures Peng Zhen and Wang Zhen.

Bo Yibo (right) talks with former leader Chen Yun in Beijing, 1984.

Bo supported faster economic reform, warning that China's future hinged on greater prosperity. "If we want to survive and maintain a foothold in the world, we have to have a sense of urgency," he once said.

Bo also wrote a two-volume book which featured his memories of CPC policy-making during some key historic events.

Bo was imprisoned during the 1966-76 "cultural revolution" before being rehabilitated in 1978.

Bo was a member of the 7th, 8th and 11th CPC Central Committees and alternate member of the Political Bureau of the 8th CPC Central Committee.

Bo was married with six children.

Xinhua - Agencies

(China Daily 01/17/2007 page1)