The past decade saw a sharp decline in number of rural poverty in China, but its urban poverty became a matter of concern, said the China Population and Development Country Report, which was released on Tuesday.

The report said the number of those living in rural poverty fell from 80 million people by the end of 1993 to 29 million in 2003, which represented a decrease from 8.7 percent of rural population to 3.1 percent.

With ongoing changes in China's economic system, problems of urban poverty are a matter of concern. In 2003, an estimated number of 22.48 million urban residents had incomes below the basic standard of living. The largest proportion of urban poor is women and children.

The investment of the central government in poverty reduction work increases annually with the result that all poverty reduction grants and funds have risen from nearly 9.8 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) in 1994 to some 30 billion yuan (US$3.6 billion) or so in 2003. Similarly, local governments have concentrated more funds on poverty reduction.

Since 1995, over 10 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) has been invested in the nine-year compulsory education in poverty-stricken areas. During the implementation, special attention has been paid to women and children.

Since the largest part of poor people are in western regions, the Chinese government adopted a Western Development Strategy in 1998 to stimulate economic growth and poverty reduction in these regions. Funding priority is given to western regions in such items as infrastructure, protection of ecological resources and the environment and tapping of natural resources.

An urban poverty reduction mechanism has been set up to address the issues of the poverty in China's urban areas. Urban poverty differs from rural poverty and results primarily from changes in the structure of China's economy and from resulting pressures on employment.

Several projects and systems have been initiated in urban areas, including a re-employment project, basic old age support insurance, health care insurance, unemployment insurance, on-job injury insurance for staff and workers, parental health insurance and minimum income relief for urban residents.

During the period of 1998 to 2003, the central government allocated 73.1 billion yuan (US$8.8 billion) to ensure the basic living standard of workers laid off from state-owned enterprises, enabling 4.4 million job losers to be re-employed.

By the end of 2003, there were 103.73 million people who were covered by various types of unemployment insurance. Governments at various levels provided a total of 15.1 billion yuan (US$1.8 billion) to subsidize a basic living standard for those in need.

(Xinhua News Agency September 8, 2004)