No letup on poverty alleviation efforts

IN HIS INSPECTION TOUR of a previously poverty-stricken rural area in Chongqing last week, President Xi Jinping urged local officials to be vigilant toward villagers who having just bid farewell to impoverished lives might slip back into poverty for various reasons if relevant poverty alleviation measures are relaxed. Beijing Youth Daily comments:

China has lifted more than 700 million people out of poverty since it launched reform and opening-up in the late 1970s, and vowed to eliminate rural poverty by 2020.

By the end of last year, China still had about 16 million people living on less than about $1.9 per day. But judging from the pace of the past five years, when nearly 60 million people were lifted out of poverty, realizing the 2020 goal, statistically, will only be a matter of time.