Guizhou reports big drop in poor population
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-02-14 10:36

Thanks to poverty elimination projects over the past five years, the poverty-stricken population in southwest China's Guizhou Province has dropped to less than 3 million from 7 million a decade ago.

According to statistics from the provincial government, during the country's 10th-Five-Year Plan period (2001-2005), 470,000 people in Guizhou who did not have enough food and clothing previously have become well-fed.

Another 800,000 needy people in Guizhou with an average yearly income under 825 yuan (about 103 US dollars) were also helped under poverty-relief projects launched by governments at all levels in the period.

The poor population with an average yearly income under 626 yuan (about 78 dollars) per person was 2.66 million by the end of 2005, 70 percent living in remote mountainous rural areas.

In addition, the province has to carry out further poverty-relief efforts to help the remaining 4.65 million needy people with average yearly income under 825 yuan during the 11th Five Year Program period (2006-2010).

Guizhou is an agricultural province with karst landforms accounting for 97 percent of its total land space. In 1995, its poor people was 7 million, accounting for 10 percent of the country's total.

China launched a nationwide program in 1994 to reduce poverty for its poverty-stricken population.

In the 10th-Five-Year Plan period alone, Guizhou poured nearly 3 billion yuan (375 million US dollars) into more than 40,000 poverty elimination projects including infrastructure.