Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday hailed the country's achievement of eradicating extreme poverty as a miracle that shall "go down in history." Xi made the remarks while addressing a grand gathering held in Beijing to mark the country's accomplishments in poverty alleviation and award its model poverty fighters.

Over the past eight years, China has lifted 98.99 million poor rural residents under the current poverty line out of poverty, with 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 poor villages removed from the poverty list.