Xinhua News Agency:

This year marks the fourth year of the transition period after winning the battle against poverty. How is the consolidation of the poverty alleviation results going? What are the plans for the next step? Thank you.

Han Jun:

Thank you for your questions. After winning the battle against poverty, how to consolidate and expand the achievements of poverty alleviation is a crucial issue which is highly valued by General Secretary Xi Jinping. He underscored that to ensure that there is no large-scale return to poverty, we should pay attention to monitoring and assistance to prevent people from falling back into poverty, boost internal forces, and continue to consolidate and expand the achievements of poverty alleviation. The task is the foundation and prerequisite for rural revitalization, and it is also the bottom line for comprehensively promoting rural revitalization. This work runs through the whole process of rural revitalization. After winning the battle against poverty, the CPC Central Committee clearly set a five-year transition period for consolidating and expanding the achievements of poverty alleviation. This year is the fourth year, and next year is the fifth year. For more than three years, we have maintained the overall stability of the assistance responsibility, policy support, regional collaboration and work system, and made concerted efforts in all aspects to firmly hold the bottom line of no large-scale return to poverty. The total number of people who were lifted out of poverty with new employment has now remained above 30 million for three consecutive years. Because the most important income of these people lifted out of poverty now depends on working, whether they work locally or elsewhere, their employment must be stable, which is the current situation. The per capita disposable income of rural residents in counties lifted out of poverty in 2021 was 14,051 yuan, and by 2023 it had increased to 16,396 yuan, with the growth rate consistently exceeding the national average for rural residents. In the first half of this year, 32.74 million people lifted out of poverty found jobs, and the per capita disposable income of rural residents in counties lifted out of poverty continued to grow rapidly. Now over the years in areas lifted out of poverty, there have been significant improvements to infrastructure during the process of poverty alleviation, including during the transition period. The appearance of villages has also undergone great changes. If you go to Jinzhai county in Anhui province, it is hard to imagine how poor it was in the past, but the people are now living good lives.

This year is a crucial year for consolidating and building on achievements in poverty alleviation and effectively dovetailing rural revitalization. As I just said, the five-year transition period will expire next year. Now everyone is very concerned about what to do after it expires? The third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee made it very clear that we must refine the regular mechanisms for preventing rural residents from lapsing or relapsing into poverty as well as establish a system of multi-tiered and categorized support for low-income rural residents and underdeveloped areas. We are still studying the policy alignment after the five-year transition period expires. But one thing I think is for sure: the basic assistance and development-oriented aid for underdeveloped areas and low-income residents must be maintained for a long time, and can only be strengthened rather than weakened. We must firmly ensure no large-scale return to poverty with persistent efforts. To ensure this bottom line, the basic assistance and development-oriented aid for low-income residents and underdeveloped areas will only be increased rather than weakened, policy measures cannot be withdrawn, and the intensity of work must continue to increase.

Next, we will think of more ways to enhance the internal driving force of areas and people that have just shaken off poverty, so that the achievements in poverty alleviation will be more consolidated and more sustainable. We will improve and make good use of the monitoring and assistance mechanism to prevent people from slipping back into poverty, with the focus on two aspects. One is accelerating the establishment of a monitoring system to prevent rural residents from lapsing or relapsing into poverty. To further improve the efficiency of monitoring and identification, some big data could be better used to reduce the burden at the primary level. The other is accurately implementing measures of assistance to prevent monitored groups from lapsing or relapsing into poverty. Some of these assistance measures ensure basic living standards for people in difficulty. For those who are unable to work, this bottom line must be upheld. For those who are able to work, development-oriented assistance should be taken to help them find jobs, start businesses, carry out productive activities and increase income. In short, early detection and early intervention should be achieved to eliminate the risk of lapse or relapse into poverty. As of the end of June this year, a total of 60.4% of those being monitored nationwide had stabilized and eliminated risks, and the rest had received support. The 480,000 newly identified people this year had also received targeted assistance. Moving forward, we must speed up the study for a regular mechanism to prevent lapse or relapse into poverty that covers the rural population, and establish a multi-tiered and categorized assistance system for low-income rural populations and underdeveloped areas.

We will continue to strengthen industrial and employment support. In terms of industries, the proportion of central fiscal funds for policy alignment used to support industrial development should be kept stable at more than 60%. According to the actual conditions of areas lifted out of poverty, we will promote the improvement of assisted industries' quality and efficiency and improve the mechanism for uniting rural residents and driving growth of their income. In terms of employment, currently, income from nonagricultural work accounts for 68.7% of the income earned by people who have emerged from poverty. In this regard, we must make good use of labor cooperation, employment support workshops, public welfare jobs and other channels, and do everything possible to expand employment channels for people who have been lifted out of poverty, increase employment opportunities and ensure that the scale of employment is stable at more than 30 million.

We will do a good job in consolidating and building on the achievements in poverty alleviation and effectively dovetailing rural revitalization. We will focus on 160 key counties receiving national assistance for rural revitalization, 35,000 key resettlement areas for people relocated from inhospitable areas for poverty alleviation, as well as other key areas. We will deepen collaboration between the eastern and western regions and encourage stronger and targeted assistance from the central Party and government departments. We will further promote the "10,000 private enterprises revitalizing 10,000 villages" initiative as well as implement a number of projects to shore up weak links and boost development, so that areas and people that have shaken off poverty will not be left behind in comprehensive rural revitalization during the modernization process and will catch up and share the achievements of rural revitalization and modernization. Thank you.

Shou Xiaoli:

Thank you, Mr. Han Jun, as well as thank you to all the speakers and reporters for participating. This concludes today's press conference. Goodbye.

Translated and edited by Wang Yiming, Huang Shan, Xu Kailin, Guo Yiming, Ma Yujia, Zhang Rui, Wang Wei, Lin Liyao, Zhou Jing, Xu Xiaoxuan, Li Huiru, Liu Caiyi, Yuan Fang, Mi Xingang, Liao Jiaxin, Wang Ziteng, Yan Bin, Liu Sitong, Rochelle Beiersdorfer, David Ball, and Jay Birbeck. In case of any discrepancy between the English and Chinese texts, the Chinese version is deemed to prevail.