China to eradicate poverty by 2050: study
(AFP)
Updated: 2006-02-09 20:06

Minimum incomes in China will average 15,000 dollars a year by 2050, lifting wages about 30-fold in rural areas and virtually eradicating poverty, a government-linked academic group has forecast.

The lengthy study unveiled this week by the Chinese Academy of Sciences predicted the country's minimum wage would average 1,300 dollars a month, meaning that abject poverty would have been eradicated.

The current average national income is just over 1,000 yuan a month, according to national statistics. Incomes for the near 800 million people living in the rural areas are much less.

While the report recognised the "heavy task" at hand, it nevertheless painted a rosy future for the nation of 1.3 billion people and its economy, currently ranked the globe's fourth largest in terms of gross domestic product.

"Achieving modernisation is a firm and unshakable goal of our nation," the report said, invoking former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping's call to develop the economy.

If China were to continue along its current development path, the earth's most populous country would be among the world's top 40 modernised nations by 2050, the academy, overseen by the State Council, China's cabinet, said.

"By the end of the 21st century it will be in the top 20."

The academy pointed out that in 2001 China lagged 80 years behind the United States and Europe in terms of a developmental index that factored in overall productivity, urbanisation, average life expectancy and adult literacy.

By 2050 life expectancy would climb to 80 years from 71.4 in 2000, while 100 percent of the populace would have medical and unemployment insurance, as well as a pension scheme.

The percentage of the population living in cities would rise to 80 percent compared with 41.7 percent now.

However, to attain such goals China will have to leave behind its agrarian roots and transform itself into a wholly industrialised society and then move towards a knowledge-based society, similar to that of Europe and the United States.

The academy's report was not resoundingly endorsed, however, with an editorial carried in the English language China Daily on Thursday cautioning it may not be realistic.

"Tantalizing as it is, nevertheless, the report has conspicuously failed to come up with detailed measures to bridge the gap between reality and promise," said the state-run newspaper.

The editorial pointed to a yawning gulf between rich and poor that party leaders warned as recently as this week was at "alarming levels."

The editorial also doubted the report's assumption of continued nine percent average growth of the economy.

"An overly optimistic forecast neither guarantees desirable result nor helps fix current problems," it said.

China currently defines absolute poverty as annual income per capita of less than 668 yuan (81 dollars), more than four times less than the United Nation's measure of one dollar a day.