Chi to move millions from homes to eradicate poverty

Beijing, Jan 7: Chinese authorities will move millions of people from their homes across the country as part of President Xi Jinpings goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2020, a media report said on Sunday.Over the next three years, Xi’s anti-poverty crusade, which the President has declared one of the key themes of his second five-year term, will see margilised rural dwellers resettled in new, government-subsidised homes, the Guardian report said.A total of 9.81 million people are set to be moved between 2016 and 2020 across the 22 provinces. Some will be being moved to distant urban housing estates, others just to slightly less remote or unforgiving rural locations, the report said.

By 2020, Beijing hopes to have helped 30 million people rise above its official poverty line.

Chi’s economic ascent has helped hundreds of millions lift themselves from poverty since the 1980s but in 2016 at least 5.7 per cent of its rural population still lived in poverty, according to a latest UN report, with that number rising to as much as 10 per cent in some western regions and 12 per cent among some ethnic minorities. (IANS)