China has made rapid progress in the battle of reducing hunger, officials from the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in Washington Tuesday in a release of a report titled "The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2002."

In China, the number of people suffering from undernourishment declined by 74 million during the period between 1992 to 2000, according to the FAO report.

Charles Riemenschneider, FAO director in North America, attributed the improvement made by China to a number of factors including policy incentives to local agricultural producers, good infrastructures and technologies for green revolution.

Answering a question about what kind of further work China needs to do in the effort for hunger reduction, Riemenschneider noted agricultural diversity. He said China has scientific capability to continue the effort.

While a few developing countries including China has made rapid progress in combating hunger, the general picture across the world is not satisfying. Riemenschneider said "I don't have very good news to report today" as he talked about the worldwide hunger reduction.

According to FAO's latest estimate for 1998-2000, 840 million people are undernourished worldwide, and the hunger reduction has been progressing at a much slower pace compared to the trends published in previous reports.

The latest report claims a reduction of only 2.5 million hungrypeople, while the decline reported in 2000 was 8 million annually and the number reported in 2001 was 6 million.

(Xinhua News Agency October 16, 2002)