Eliminating poverty by 2020 a challenge

Since it launched its reform and opening-up in the late 1970s, China has made great achievements in alleviation of poverty in the country. However, it still faces great challenges to achieve the goal of completely eliminating poverty and pulling the poor above the current standard set by the central government by 2020. More efforts are needed to support further reform and innovation to achieve this goal.

According to the World Bank's latest purchasing power parity standard of $1.9 per day, China's urban and rural impoverished population numbered more than 114 million in 2012, down by 641.68 million since 1990. This accounted for 60.74 percent of reduction in the global impoverished population.

But at the end of 2014 there were still 70.17 million rural impoverished people in China living below the government's official poverty line of 2,300 yuan ($362.5) per capita net income per year.