China's cabinet issues five-year plan for poverty alleviation

BEIJING - China's cabinet, the State Council, has released a poverty alleviation plan for the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020).

Poverty alleviation is the most difficult task for China to realize the goal of building an all-round moderately prosperous society, of which rural poverty is the weakest link, said the document released Friday.

The plan maintains the nation's precision-poverty relief measures while implementing regional development strategies, with a focus on old revolutionary bases, as well as ethnic minority and border areas.

The plan featured a number of poverty-relief projects under the coordination of the government, the market and society, which aim to break the development bottlenecks of poverty-stricken areas and help the poor boost their abilities to achieve self-sustained development.

China plans to lift all of its poor out of poverty by 2020, especially those who live in the nation's 128,000 poor villages and 832 poor counties, where poverty has become a regional issue, according to the document.

Major tasks for the next five years include ensuring people have enough to eat and wear, and that they have adequate education, health services and housing, it said.

The plan is critical to achieving the country's ambitious goal of stamping out poverty by 2020.

Poverty relief is high on China's agenda. Since the start of reform and opening-up in 1978, an economic boom has helped lift more than 700 million people out of poverty.

By the end of 2015, China still had 55.75 million people below the national poverty line of 2,800 yuan per year.

The document said China will take precise, targeted and differentiated measures to ensure effective poverty relief.

Poor areas will be encouraged to develop competitive industries, such as agriculture, tourism and e-commerce, said the document.

Some people living in impoverished regions will be relocated, with a variety of support measures to increase their incomes.

A series of special programs will be launched to create more jobs for the poor, and improve education, health care and ecological environment in poverty-stricken areas, said the document.

Besides, the government will guarantee basic living standard for people unable to work, it added.