China renews war on poverty

For most farmers, Autumn is a happy season where months of hard work toiling the ground finally pay off.

But for 43-year-old farmer Fu Xiangli it was a season of remedy.

A resident of an impoverished village in Haikou city in south China's Hainan Province, she's able breath a sigh of relief after a hastily planted mushroom crop managed to bring in 4,000 yuan (651 US dollars).It's a good haul, but less than half the family's normal earnings.

In July, a record-breaking typhoon destroyed Fu's fields of rubber trees and rice paddies. With a yearly income of 10,000 yuan split between the family of five, their budget was already shoestring. Incidents like the typhoon often prove financially fatal for those toeing the line of poverty.

"It's surprising that we can still get some money after the disaster," Fu said, adding the glossy ganoderma mushroom crop was planted under the guidance of the local government. "I see hope of a new life."

Fu is just one of more than 80 million poor Chinese under the country's poverty line who have become the target of China's new anti-poverty campaign as the country celebrates its first National Poverty-Relief Day on Friday.

WAR ON POVERTY

Along with the stunning economic growth over the past three decades, China's poverty relief work has been on the constant move.

From 1978 to 2010, China lifted around 660 million people out of poverty, amounting for over 90 percent of the world's total relieved poverty population, according to the country's leading group office of poverty alleviation and development.

Along with overall GDP growth targets, the government is focusing on raising the income of the country's population with a current goal to double per capita income from those recorded in 2010 by 2020.

In an effort to expand the safety net for those in poverty, the national poverty line was increased from 206 yuan in 1986 to 2,300 yuan in 2011,

However, the war on poverty still has a long way to go, with over 80 million people still mired in poverty by the national standard.