Eradication of poverty hailed as a 'miracle'

China's achievements in poverty eradication amount to a "miracle" in human history and show how a committed government can transform economic development into increased quality of life for ordinary people, Ban Ki-moon, the chairman of the Boao Forum for Asia, said on Tuesday.

The success of China, as well as that of other Asian countries, provides valuable lessons that will empower other developing nations on their way toward sustainable development, said Ban, a former secretary-general of the United Nations.

"Since the world's most populous country can say goodbye to poverty, other developing countries should have the confidence to reach the Sustainable Development Goals as well," he said.

Ban made the remarks in a prerecorded speech delivered at a news conference in Beijing for the release of the Asia Poverty Reduction Report 2020. The report, compiled by the Boao Forum for Asia alongside the China Agricultural University in Beijing, said Asia has generally eradicated absolute poverty and been leading the poverty-reduction efforts in global terms.

Measured by the international poverty line of $1.90 per person per day, as of the first half of 2020, the level of extreme poverty in Asia is around 1.6 percent of the overall population. The figure marks a decrease of 0.25 percent from the same period last year.

By 2019, more than half the countries in Asia, achieved, on average, a poverty reduction rate of over 1 percent per year since records began, Ban said.

Greatest drop

The top three countries for poverty reduction since 1990 have been Indonesia, Tajikistan and China, according to the report. Indonesia has seen the greatest drop in extreme poverty, from 66.7 percent of the population in 1998 to 6.4 percent in 2018.

China, notably, is on track to eradicate extreme poverty by the end of this year, when it will become the first developing country to reach the "no poverty" goal of the UN, as laid out in the world body's Sustainable Development Goals.

"Asia is moving from the final phase of eliminating extreme poverty to a new stage of reducing relative poverty," said Li Baodong, secretary-general of the Boao Forum for Asia, told the news conference.

However, the report warns that Asia faces new challenges in reducing poverty, with the world being in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Due to the upheavals caused by the coronavirus, the global poverty rate is expected to increase for the first time since records began, and 71 million people are projected to fall back into extreme poverty－half of them in South Asia, the report said.

Ban described the pandemic as "a public health emergency more critical than the Ebola crisis in 2015", saying it's a "very demanding poverty scenario that deserves even more joint efforts".