China’s Xi declares victory over poverty

BEIJING: President Xi Jinping on Thursday declared that China has scored a "complete victor y" in its fight against poverty by lif ting over 770 million people out of it in the last four decades, calling it another "miracle" created by the countr y that will go down in histor y.

Absolute poverty has been eradicated in the world's most populous country, Xi announced while addressing a gathering held here to mark the countr y's accomplishments in poverty alleviation and honour its model poverty fighters. China has a population of around 1.4 billion.

Xi said that all poor people in rural areas have been lif ted out of poverty.

With this, China has achieved the UN goal of poverty eradication 10 years ahead of the 2030 deadline, he said. Over the past eight years, the final 98.99 million impoverished rural residents living under the current poverty line have all been lif ted out of poverty. All the 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 impoverished villages have been removed from the poverty list, he said. Since the launch of the reform and opening up in the late 1970s, 770 million impoverished rural residents have shaken off poverty when calculated according to China's current poverty line, he said.