LHASA: Southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region has accomplished the historical feat of eradicating absolute poverty, according to a press briefing held in the regional capital of Lhasa Thursday.
By the end of 2019, Tibet had lifted 628,000 people out of poverty and delisted 74 county-level areas from the poverty list, said Wu Yingjie, Communist Party of China chief of Tibet, calling the achievement a “major victory.” The average annual net income of poor people in Tibet had risen from 1,499 yuan (about 220.44 U.S. dollars) in 2015 to 9,328 yuan in 2019, Wu said.
Since the beginning of this year, Tibet has shifted its focus from tackling absolute poverty to consolidating poverty alleviation achievements, he said.
Tibet’s significant victory in poverty alleviation attests to the advantages of the socialist system on the plateau, Wu said. Known as the “Roof of the World,” Tibet is well-known for its picturesque plateau landscape and rich ethnic culture. It is one of the main battlegrounds in China’s nationwide campaign against poverty. “The elimination of absolute poverty in Tibet is a major achievement of China’s poverty alleviation campaign in the new era,” says a document released at the briefing, noting that the feat has greatly enhanced the modernization drive in Tibet.
Since 2016, Tibet has spent 74.8 billion yuan of agriculture-related funds in poverty alleviation, with an average annual increase of over 15 percent, Wu said. – Agencies
