China meet on how to lift 70 mn out of poverty

The Chinese government opened a meeting on Friday to discuss how it can lift 70 million people out of poverty by the end of 2020.

China plans to help all its remaining poor escape poverty in the next five years, Xinhua news agency reported.

This has been described as a tough challenge by President Xi Jinping as the government wants to build a "moderately prosperous society".

More than 600 million Chinese have escaped poverty in the past three decades, about 70 percent of the total global achievement, Xinhua reported.