Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, delivers an important speech at a grand gathering to mark the nation’s poverty alleviation accomplishments and honor model poverty fighters at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 25, 2021.

Under Xi’s leadership, China launched a monumental anti-poverty campaign on a scale unseen anywhere in the world.

Over the past eight years, the final 98.99 million impoverished rural residents living under the current poverty line have all been lifted out of poverty. All 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 villages have also been removed from the poverty list.

The country has met the poverty eradication target set out in the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 10 years ahead of schedule.

Combined with poverty-reduction results since the late 1970s, China is responsible for over 70 percent of the global reduction in poverty over the period, World Bank statistics have shown.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres acknowledged the success of China’s anti-poverty campaign over the past few years, calling it “the most important contribution” to the global poverty reduction cause.

“No country has been able to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in such a short time,” Xi said.

Source: Xinhua