Final Battle Against Poverty in 2020

According to a recent press conference by the State Council’s mechanism for joint prevention and control of novel coronavirus, in order to win the battle against poverty across China by the end of 2020, competent departments had rolled out a raft of measures to eradicate poverty by boosting businesses, consumption, and employment as well as strengthening support to vulnerable groups.

Wang Chunyan from the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development said that epidemic prevention and control in poor areas had shown positive results.

The epidemic mainly affected poor areas in the following three ways. First, it prevented the poor from leaving home for their jobs in urban areas. Second, it increased the difficulties faced by farmers in production and work. Third, it delayed many poverty alleviation projects. To mitigate the impacts, the poverty relief office and other departments jointly issued a series of policy documents, pledging financial, employment, and other policy support.

These policies are being implemented step by step and have achieved good results.

More poverty alleviation projects had resumed. In 22 provincial-level regions in central and western China, out of 370,000 projects, 220,000 had been back in construction. Businesses and plants for poverty reduction had also reopened in areas at low risk of spreading the virus.