While delivering a government performance report over the past five years, Premier Li Keqiang reported that over the past five years, 100 million people had been lifted out of poverty.
Speaking at the opening event of the 14th National People’s Congress, which was held in Beijing at the Great Hall of the People, Keqiang said that a total of 832 impoverished counties were lifted from poverty, including more than 9.6 million poverty-stricken people who were relocated from inhospitable areas.
According to the report, this milestone was reached through implementing a policy that majorly targeted poverty alleviation, such as providing funding for poverty alleviation efforts on a priority basis, placing counties and villages facing difficulty in poverty alleviation under special supervision to ensure that they met poverty alleviation targets.
In addition, they also provided assistance to develop local industries and boost employment, ecological conservation, education, healthcare, social security, and other fields but most importantly ensuring that they had access to compulsory education, safe housing, and basic medical service.
During the fight against poverty, major poverty relief policies stayed consistent, despite having made major strides in the fight against poverty. This was done to ensure they guarded against being set back into the poverty trap. Hence, establishing monitoring and assistance mechanisms to prevent people who were lifted out of poverty from relapsing
"Policies remained largely unchanged during the transition period following the elimination of absolute poverty; all of the related responsibilities, policies, support, and oversight remained in place," said Keqiang.
Going forward, the government is still in a continued endeavour to stabilise agricultural output and advance rural revitalization by leveraging agriculture, specifically in the production of oilseed crops, and increasing grain production capacity by 50 million metric tonnes.
Among other major announcements, China set a 5% GDP target, compared to last year’s 3% GDP target. A 3% inflation rate was also set, which is higher than the 2% rate as of 2022. The 5% target is going to be very significant in guiding the local government and government agencies on the national level to better plan for and set goals that will help the entire country hit the 5% target.
According to the latest report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), China’s economy is likely to rebound this year, especially after the lifting of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, whereby it is estimated that every 1% growth in China contributes at least 0.3% of Asia’s growth.
The GDP is set over a period of five years and is set to be achieved through an increase in consumer domestic demand, the creation of better policies that favour the private sector, increasing the quality of products on the market, support of science and technology as well as private entities, but also encouraging more international investors into China and encouraging the private sector to venture into infrastructural ventures.
Technological advancement will play a key role in China’s development in the next five years, considering its 60% contribution to economic growth, at least according to the report.
The report indicated that China’s GDP increased to 121 trillion yuan, registering an annual growth rate of 5.2% over the past five years, and 70 trillion at an annual rate of 6.2 %
The Chinese government is not planning on using a flood of liquidity to push the prices, but the 3% inflation rate will be demand driven. According to the reports, this will be achieved through boosting the incomes of urban and rural people as well as stabilising spending on big tickets by citizens.
A total of 12.06 million urban jobs were added, with the year-end surveyed urban unemployment rate falling to 5.5%.
Source: New Vision