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  • Oct, 18th, 24

XINHUA-PAKISTAN SERVICE

Chinese no longer threatened by food or clothing shortage: ReportBreaking

September 12, 2019

BEIJING, Sep 12 (INP): The 1.3 billion Chinese are no longer threatened by food or clothing shortages, more than 850 million Chinese are out of poverty, 770 million are employed, nine-year compulsory education is provided across the country, and China's universal health care system and social security system lead the World in scale. This was stated by Chen Xu, head of the Chinese mission to UN at Geneva. According to report, published by China Economic Net, "After years of hard work, the number of impoverished people (people living below the current poverty line) dropped from 770 million in 1978 to 16.6 million in 2018, and the poverty rate dropped from 97.5 percent to 1.7 percent," highlighted the exhibition. "Every year from 2012 to 2018, an average of 10 million people in China were lifted out of poverty," it said. These numbers are the strongest evidence of China's achievements in human rights. China is the first developing country to realize the UN Millennium Development Goal for poverty reduction as it has lifted the greatest number of people out of poverty. Philippine Ambassador in Geneva Evan P. Garcia, said the People's Republic of China has demonstrated a tremendous achievement in lifting so many people out of poverty and in promoting development for the whole country. This is something that the whole world should recognize and learn from. "The poverty level that (China) cut down is quite dramatic and significant. That is incredible for us, for neighboring countries," said Myanmar's Ambassador in Geneva Kyaw Moe Tun. In the health sector, the number of health service institutions increased to 987,000 in 2017, up by 480 percent from 1978, with the number of health professionals soaring by 260 percent to 8.98 million in 2017. China used to be an illiterate country around 1949, where 80 percent of its people could not write. In 2018, average years of schooling for those aged 15 and above were 9.6, and the figure for the working-age population was 10.5, according to a white paper on China's progress in human rights issued by China's State Council Information Office in December 2018. INP/J/LK