Coronavirus and natural disasters not enough to derail China’s anti-poverty efforts, Beijing says
- The National Rural Revitalization Administration says thanks to government support, there has been no major return to poverty in the countryside
- Even so, experts say a pressing issue for Beijing is the declining incomes of migrant workers disproportionately affected by the Covid-19 pandemic
The Chinese government has said it has averted a large-scale return to poverty after a difficult year riddled with coronavirus outbreaks and economic challenges, but according to experts the declining income of poor workers remains the real issue at hand.
On Sunday, the National Rural Revitalization Administration (NRRA) acknowledged there had been challenges this year in some regions of China, especially among highly vulnerable migrant workers.
“Due to the impact of coronavirus and natural disasters this year, some rural migrant workers, who had been lifted out of poverty, had to return to rural areas, poverty alleviation programmes were halted, agricultural products became unsaleable this year”, Xu Jianmin, a director at the NRRA, said on the agency’s official WeChat account.
“[But] after taking various efforts, all those problems have been solved and a large-scale return to poverty did not take place in the country.”
