Economic cooperation between China and its neighboring countries can boost China's poverty alleviation campaign by providing job opportunities to the poor, a poverty alleviation official said Tuesday.
Su Guoxia, an official with the State Council's poverty alleviation office, made the statement at a news conference on Tuesday in response to questions about why China has helped poor people in other countries while over 70 million of its own people live below the poverty line.
Liu said that China's own fight against poverty also received support from international organizations and foreign countries in the early years of the country's opening-up and reform.
China has been making efforts to reduce its own poverty level while cooperating with certain less-developed countries by sharing experience and providing aid to the extent that China's capacity allows, said Liu Yongfu, head of the State Council's poverty alleviation office, speaking at the same news conference.
China has lifted 790 million rural people out of poverty since the end of the 1970s, contributing over 70 percent of gains by worldwide poverty alleviation efforts, he said.
"As the world's second-largest economy and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China should share responsibility for alleviating poverty, on the basis of properly handling our own affairs," Liu said.
China has vowed to lift all of its 70 million poor people out of poverty by 2020, when the 13th Five-Year-Plan (2016-20) is completed.
At the news conference, Liu also revealed that this year China's poverty line is set at around 3,000 yuan ($464) in annual per capita income, while in 2010 it was 2,300 yuan.
China's poverty line is slightly higher than the World Bank's standard. The national poverty line in 2014 was 2,800 yuan, which equaled $2.20 per day in purchasing power parity - higher than the World Bank's latest standard of $1.90 per day, Liu said. The national poverty line rises every year in line with price and cost of living indexes, he added.
President Xi Jinping said in November that "no single poor region nor individual living in poverty will be left behind" when the country accomplishes the goal of "building a moderately prosperous society" by 2020.
