'Fighting poverty is most important task,' Xi says

Editor's note: This is the third story in a series of previews on the two sessions - the annual gatherings of the nation's top legislature and its top body of political advisers. The sessions will start in early March.

China will maintain its focus on the national anti-poverty campaign and intends to lift at least another 10 million rural villagers out of poverty this year.

The central government has promised by 2020 to have no Chinese living beneath the poverty level, which was set in 2011 at 2,300 yuan ($334) per person per year.

On Friday, People's Daily, the Communist Party of China's official newspaper, reported about how deeply President Xi Jinping cares about the national poverty alleviation campaign.

"Fighting poverty is the most important task of the Party and the nation. The task should be given to our best men to accomplish," Xi said.

The central government has already lifted 55.64 million people from poverty since 2013.

But Ou Qingping, deputy director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, said at a news briefing on Friday that after accomplishing the annual task of helping at least 10 million people in the past year, more than 40 million rural residents remain impoverished-that number was 55.75 million in the previous year.

The exact number of Chinese who still live in poverty is widely expected to be released during the two sessions, the annual legislative and advisory gatherings of, respectively, the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Both gather in the first two weeks of March.

It is then that the central government will tighten its supervision and evaluate more precisely how best to achieve local poverty relief.

Ou acknowledged that local officials in some areas fabricate statistics or simply give money to the poor to meet poverty relief targets.

He said what the top leadership wants is to teach poor villagers how to make a better living with their own hands, rather than relying on government-paid free lunches.

In the People's Daily report, President Xi, who worked his way up from a ground-level official, said: "On poverty alleviation, there should be responsibilities to assume on every level of the government.

"Only when the desired results are achieved can the Party chief and the head of a county leave their posts, unless they are not capable and have to be replaced by someone more able."

He added that local officials who have done great jobs will be promoted, but they still have to stay at their posts and finish what they started before they can move.

chenmengwei@chinadaily.com.cn