Coronavirus outbreak threatens to undermine China’s drive to end extreme poverty
- Large parts of the country are under lockdown in an effort to contain Covid-19, hitting poor rural areas and bringing economic activity to a standstill
- Senior official Wang Yang warns that disease poses a major challenge to President Xi Jinping’s drive to eradicate extreme poverty by end of year
The disease has killed more than 2,000 people and seen many parts of the country go into lockdown, damaging both the rural and urban economies and pushing some of those affected back into poverty.
On Tuesday Wang Yang, the Communist Party’s number four, told a group of political advisers that it was the “number one factor” affecting President Xi Jinping’s drive to eradicate extreme poverty by the end of the year.
“We should help make in-depth and specific assessments on how the outbreak will impair the most impoverished regions’ poverty alleviation efforts,” Wang added, according to a report by state news agency Xinhua.
“We should also supervise local officials in giving more financial and policy support to these regions, as well as those hit hard by the pandemic, in order to prevent people from returning to poverty due to the outbreak.”
This week the central government’s poverty alleviation office and finance ministry also issued a notice asking local governments to make this a priority.
