China to spend USD 13 billion next year for poverty eradication

China has allocated USD 13 billion for poverty alleviation next year as part of its efforts to eradicate poverty by 2020, the government has said.

China has lifted 740 million people in rural areas out of poverty from 1978 to 2017, roughly 19 million each year, state-run National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in September.

As per recently released guidelines on winning the battle against poverty, impoverished people should be guaranteed food and clothing, and children from poor families should also be guaranteed nine-year compulsory education.

Basic medical needs and living conditions of the impoverished should also be guaranteed.

People whose annual income is lower than 2,300 yuan (USD 337.3) are defined as living below the poverty line in China.

China's central government has dispensed in advance part of its 2019 poverty alleviation fund to local governments, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) said Tuesday.

The poverty alleviation fund already allocated to 28 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities totalled 90.98 billion yuan (about USD 13 billion) accounting for 86 per cent recorded last year, according to the MOF.

Some 12 billion yuan of the fund will be used to support areas in deep poverty, including Tibet, Xinjiang, and parts of Sichuan, Yunnan, and Gansu provinces, state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.

The ministry also delegated its power to review and approve the use of poverty alleviation funds to county governments, stressing funds should not be used for any projects or tasks unrelated to poverty reduction.

In 2015, the Chinese government set a goal of eradicating absolute poverty by 2020.

As of October 2018, China has seen 153 counties officially removed from the country's list of impoverished areas, with documented people in absolute poverty accounting for less than three percent of the local population.

NBS data shows that China's poverty relief achievements have contributed more than 70 per cent to global poverty alleviation work in the past 40 years.

Over the past five years since President Xi Jinping came to power, over 68 million people were lifted out of poverty in China, a previous Xinhua report had said.

The country aims to further lift 10 million people out of poverty this year and eradicate poverty by 2020, it said.