Jilin announces counties, cities lifted out of poverty

Northeast China’s Jilin province announced on April 11 that a slew of poverty-stricken counties and cities -- Da’an and Shuangliao cities, Baicheng city’s Taobei district and Jingyu, Tongyu, Antu Wangqing, Liuhe and Changling counties -- have now been lifted out of poverty.

Jilin officials said the announcement was a landmark development, marking the point where all poverty-stricken counties in the province have overcome destitution.

They said the poverty situation in Jilin province has the characteristics of a wide distribution and high incidence of people living in penury.

Among them, the western city of Baicheng has had drought and little rain and the land has serious problems with desertification and salinization. Meanwhile, over in the eastern Yanbian Korean autonomous prefecture, the cultivated land is scattered and cultivation conditions are mostly poor, rendering the incomes of indigent people there unstable due to various natural disasters.

By the end of 2015, the province had registered 700,000 people living in privation, with a poverty incidence rate of 4.9 percent.

In recent years, the province has made many efforts to help people out of penury. By the end of 2019, it had registered 10,063 indigent citizens, with the poverty incidence rate declining to 0.07 percent.

Officials said Jilin next plans to implement targeted measures to help lift its remaining poor out of poverty and establish monitoring and early warning system to prevent poverty reoccurring.