Charlie Munger, vice chairman of the conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway and longtime business partner of Warren Buffett, praised China's poverty elimination success, automation and economic advancement at the annual meeting of Daily Journal Corp. on Wednesday. 

"Nobody else has ever taken a big country out of poverty so fast and so long. And what I see in China now just staggers me," Munger said. 

China has managed to lift about 100 million impoverished people out of extreme poverty since 2012. The country has thus far eradicated extreme poverty, achieving the poverty eradication target set by the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 10 years in advance. 

Munger also commented that China has "behaved very shrewdly" in managing its economy, which has performed better than the U.S. He added that the momentum will probably continue. 

China reported a gross domestic product increase of 6.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020, bringing the country's full-year expansion to 2.3 percent. On the other hand, the U.S. economy contracted by 3.5 percent in 2020, the biggest drop since 1946.

"There are factories in China that are just absolutely full of robots are working beautifully," Munger commented, while added that Chinese manufactures are "getting very skillful at operating." 

In response to a question about new technology disrupting the banking system, Munger said investors should not buy gold or bitcoin, adding that the cryptocurrency was too volatile to serve as a "medium of exchange for the world."