Poverty Eradication – A Nation's Commitment

POVERTY eradication has always been a common goal of humanity and a challenge to global development.

- Huang Chengwei

POVERTY eradication has always been a common goal of humanity and a challenge to global development. The Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese government have always attached great importance to poverty reduction. The fundamental starting point and goal of their work has been serving the people so that they can live a better life. They have succeeded in finding a way of poverty alleviation and development with Chinese characteristics.

40 Years’ Remarkable Achievements

When the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, poverty was prevalent throughout China, especially in rural areas. Its alleviation became a priority in the policies of the CPC and the government. By expanding farmers’ rights to use land, improving rural infrastructure, primary education, and basic medical services, establishing a social security system based on the rural collective economy, and implementing major policies such as building an agricultural technology promotion network, the poverty of rural residents was significantly alleviated, and their living conditions were improved. However, by the current standards, the poverty-stricken rural population in 1978 was 770 million with the poverty headcount ratio as high as 97.5 percent.

In 1978, China’s reform and opening-up began. The state took economic development as its central task, and began to shift from a planned economy to a socialist market economy, and from a traditional agricultural society to an industrial and modern society. It has since stuck to the road of alleviating poverty through development.