China has racked up impressive achievements in poverty alleviation in recent years. In 2011, China raised the poverty line to 2536 yuan, or just over 380 US dollars, a year per capita. By this standard, 122 million Chinese were living in poverty. This number has been steadily decreasing. Last year, it fell to 43.35 million. In 2011, the central government allocated 27 billion yuan for poverty reduction. In 2016, it rose to 67 billion yuan.  

These great strides are largely attributed to the guideline of targeted poverty reduction and alleviation proposed by President Xi Jinping, when he visited Shibadong Village in Hunan Province in November 2013. It means Local governments need to merge poverty alleviation resources to make better use of them and take targeted measures to ensure that assistance reaches poverty-stricken villages and households.

In the work report at last month's Party Congress, Xi Jinping encouraged the whole Party to continue to implement targeted poverty reduction and alleviation measures and ensure that by 2020, all rural residents living below the current poverty line will have been out of poverty.