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China to eradicate poverty by 2050: study
(AFP)
Updated: 2006-02-10 09:41
Minimum incomes in China will average 15,000 dollars a year by 2050, lifting
wages about 30-fold in rural areas and virtually eradicating poverty, a
government-linked academic group has forecast.
A junkman reads a book while siting on his
bicycle loaded with wastes along a street in China's southwestern city of
Chengdu. Minimum incomes in China will average 15,000 dollars a year by
2050, lifting wages about 30-fold in rural areas and virtually eradicating
poverty, a government-linked academic group has forecast.
[AFP] |
The lengthy study unveiled this week
by the Chinese Academy of Sciences predicted the country's minimum wage would
average 1,300 dollars a month, meaning that abject poverty would have been
eradicated.
The current average national income is just over 1,000 yuan a month,
according to national statistics. Incomes for the near 800 million people living
in the rural areas are much less.
While the report recognised the "heavy task" at hand, it nevertheless painted
a rosy future for the nation of 1.3 billion people and its economy, currently
ranked the globe's fourth largest in terms of gross domestic product.
"Achieving modernisation is a firm and unshakable goal of our nation," the
report said, invoking former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping's call to develop
the economy.
If China were to continue along its current development path, the earth's
most populous country would be among the world's top 40 modernised nations by
2050, the academy, overseen by the State Council, China's cabinet, said.
"By the end of the 21st century it will be in the top 20."
The academy pointed out that in 2001 China lagged 80 years behind the United
States and Europe in terms of a developmental index that factored in overall
productivity, urbanisation, average life expectancy and adult literacy.
By 2050 life expectancy would climb to 80 years from 71.4 in 2000, while 100
percent of the populace would have medical and unemployment insurance, as well
as a pension scheme.
The percentage of the population living in cities would rise to 80 percent
compared with 41.7 percent now.
However, to attain such goals China will have to leave behind its agrarian
roots and transform itself into a wholly industrialised society and then move
towards a knowledge-based society, similar to that of Europe and the United
States.
The academy's report was not resoundingly endorsed, however, with an
editorial carried in the English language China Daily on Thursday cautioning it
may not be realistic.
"Tantalizing as it is, nevertheless, the report has conspicuously failed to
come up with detailed measures to bridge the gap between reality and promise,"
said the state-run newspaper.
The editorial pointed to a yawning gulf between rich and poor that the ruling
communist party leadership warned as recently as this week was at "alarming
levels."
The editorial also doubted the report's assumption of continued nine percent
average growth of the economy.
"An overly optimistic forecast neither guarantees desirable result nor helps
fix current problems," it said.
China currently defines absolute poverty as annual income per capita of less
than 668 yuan (81 dollars), more than four times less than the United Nation's
measure of one dollar a day.
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