Many ways to tackle poverty
- Source: Global Times
- [01:34 July 20 2010]
- Comments
"It's a good start that the CPC created lots of opportunities for rural residents to raise their income," Bagci said. "The development of tourism not only brings in income, it does no harm to the environment."
He said different countries should learn from each other in the poverty alleviation efforts.
Sok An also spoke highly of the development of tourism in rural areas, since farmers could get income not only from planting crops, but by selling things to tourists.
The political leaders also visited minority villagers where local residents could earn money from raising goats, planting trees and developing tourism.
The local authorities at the Yunnan tourism bureau announced plans to invest 61.8 billion yuan ($1 billion) to build 33 new tourism projects, most of which are characterized by minority ethnic cultures, said Wen Shuqiong, deputy director of the local tourism bureau.
D. Devarajan, national secretary of All-India Forward Bloc, said that India also has many ethnic minorities and hopes that his countrymen could learn from China's successful efforts.
However, Bagci questioned whether the tourism spots in remote rural areas could attract enough tourists each year, since it is far from the urban areas and major cities.
Questions remain
By sponsoring the weeklong conference of ICAPP focused on poverty alleviation, the CPC tried to showcase its achievements in poverty alleviation to other Asian political parties.
Hui Liangyu, vice premier of the State Council, said during Saturday's open ceremony in Kunming that the people living in poverty in rural areas fell from 250 million in 1978 to about 36 million in 2009, and the proportion of the poor population in rural villages went from 30.7 to 3.6 percent.
China was the first country that halved the poverty population from 2000-2015 as part of the Millennium Development Goal set by the United Nations, Hui said.
China's 11th Five-Year Plan, which ends this year, focused on narrowing the income gap between its urban and rural areas, and between coastal and inland regions.
"Apart from concentrating public investments in its interior regions, the Chinese government has reduced agricultural taxes, slowed down the conversion of farmlands to other uses, and increased subsidies for laid-off workers. It even provided free textbooks to rural residents," said Jose de Venecia, the founding chairman of International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP).
"We express our admiration for China's success in lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty within the span of a generation. This is a unique economic and social achievement in human history, for which the CPC and its wise leadership deserve due credit," according to the Kunming Declaration on Poverty Alleviation issued by the ICAPP on Sunday.
Some pointed out that there might be problems with the poverty alleviation efforts.
Bagci told the Global Times that his political party in Turkey had just one representative in each village in charge of volunteer work for the party in terms of various issues including campaign.
A local fruit peddler surnamed Li of Kunming told the Global Times that he learned that the central government introduced some favorable policies.
"I didn't know which beneficial policies had been enforced, and the local authorities didn't tell me anything about the policies either," Li said.
Jose De Venecia, founding chairman of ICAPP, said at a Sunday that the fight against corruption in poverty alleviation remains tough for all political parties including the CPC.
