BEIJING: Wang Qin, 59, collects scrap at a demolished residential district on the outskirts of Beijing, working 15 hours a day and struggling on her own to pay for her granddaughter's education.
She worries that her own home, a small illegally constructed shack where she lives with her granddaughter and mentally ill husband, might also be bulldozed by local authorities.
The family lives off the 1,500 yuan ($228) a month Wang makes selling scrap and receives no assistance from the Beijing government.
As migrants from another province, they are not recognized as residents of the capital despite having lived there since 2014. Since she is not registered in Beijing, Wang has to pay more for things like school and medical care — a hardship for migrants in cities, where costs such as housing are also far higher than in the countryside.
“Every month you still need to live, I still need to pay the school fees for the child, and her food and drink every day,” said Wang, who came to Beijing to try escape the grinding poverty of her village in Henan province in central China. “I can't take it, my whole body aches, I can't earn the money.”
Wang's plight is a common one among millions of poor migrants in China's big cities, as well as in the rural areas from which so many of them come, highlighting the challenges of the government's campaign to wipe out extreme poverty by 2020.
President Xi Jinping made the campaign one of his signature policy issues after pledging in 2015 that China would lift the 70 million people living under the poverty level at the time out of poverty by 2020.
The campaign has been ratcheted up as the Communist Party prepares to hold a twice-a-decade leadership meeting on Wednesday.
“The country is placing an unprecedented amount of effort on alleviating poverty,” Liu Yongfu, head of the government's Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development, said at a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday. “President Xi Jinping is personally in command, and has visited all of the areas of concentrated poverty” in China.
He added: “With the active participation of all parts of society, it can be said that the battle against poverty has achieved significant results.”
Beijing has pledged to spend 86 billion yuan on poverty alleviation this year, 30 percent more than last year, according to the Ministry of Finance. Liu said direct spending by central and local governments on poverty alleviation from 2013 to 2017 totalled 461.2 billion yuan, adding that other types of government spending also had an impact.
The funds are used for infrastructure projects, as well as subsidies for education, health care and rural agriculture.
The government's poverty line is income of 2,300 yuan per year, and by the end of 2016, 43.35 million people were still officially below it.
The president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, on Thursday said China's achievement in lifting 800 million people out of poverty since 1990 was “one of the great stories in human history”.
But many researchers and social workers say the campaign doesn't address the most serious problems facing China's poor.
“I personally don't really agree with the government setting this 2020 poverty alleviation target,” said Yang Lixiong, a professor at Renmin University in Beijing who has studied the issue. “The supportive policies can relieve poverty in the short term, but from a long-term perspective, they will easily fall back into poverty.”
Central government officials acknowledge the challenges, which they say include poor implementation of policies and misuse of funds at the local level.
They also say the programme is narrowly focused in order to address the most pressing problems of the poorest rural residents, but insist that much effort is going into improving health care and education.
“First we need to win this battle, resolve the current problems,” said Liu, responding to a question from Reuters about whether the programme would continue beyond 2020.
Wu Chen, founder of the Beijing-based Social Resources Institute, which works in Dalinggou, a village in Hebei province, said development of rural areas faced challenges like the emptying of the countryside as people move to cities looking for work, environmental destruction, and lack of capital.
Dalinggou is plastered with slogans calling for the village to win the war on poverty. With that aim in mind, the local government built a new paved road to the village and last month installed solar-powered street lights.
Wu said there had been a huge improvement in rural infrastructure, but a wide information and culture gap between the rural poor and urbanites remained a major challenge.
“Can these villagers not only escape poverty in terms of income, but also information and ability poverty?”
— Reuters
China steps up war on poverty, though some are still being left behind
China steps up war on poverty, though some are still being left behind
Egypt’s annual inflation falls to 10.3% in December: CAMPAS
RIYADH: Egypt’s annual headline inflation rate slowed sharply to 10.3 percent in December, down from 23.4 percent in the same month a year earlier, official data showed.
According to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, the overall consumer price index reached 264.2 points in December. On a monthly basis, inflation rose marginally by 0.1 percent.
CAPMAS attributed the annual deceleration primarily to a decline in food prices, including a 1.1 percent drop in meat and poultry, 1.2 percent in dairy, cheese and eggs, 1 percent in fruits, 2 percent in vegetables, and 0.1 percent in sugar and sugary products.
Prices of household appliances, audio-visual equipment and information technology devices also declined by 0.5 percent and 0.4 percent, respectively.
However, other categories recorded increases, including grains and bread by 0.1 percent, oils and fats by 0.3 percent, and beverages such as coffee, tea and cocoa by 0.1 percent.
Month-on-month inflation showed limited movement, with food and beverage prices falling by 0.8 percent due to similar declines in meat, dairy, fruit and vegetable prices. In contrast, modest cost increases were recorded in grains, oils and beverages.
Alcohol and tobacco prices rose by 0.2 percent, while clothing and footwear increased by 0.7 percent, driven by higher prices for fabrics, up 1.6 percent, ready-made garments, up 0.4 percent, and footwear, up 1.6 percent.
Housing and utilities recorded an increase of 1.5 percent, reflecting a 1.9 percent rise in actual rents, a 1.6 percent increase in electricity, gas and other fuels, and a 0.5 percent rise in maintenance costs.
Furniture and household equipment prices climbed 0.9 percent, while healthcare rose by 0.5 percent, led by outpatient services, up 1 percent, and hospital services, up 1.8 percent. Transport costs increased by 0.2 percent, and recreational and cultural services rose by 0.6 percent, including a 1.5 percent increase in organized travel.
Annual inflation data showed a broad-based increase across most sectors. Food and beverages rose by 0.9 percent year on year, with fruits up 22.6 percent, despite a 4.1 percent decline in meat and poultry and a 4.8 percent drop in vegetables.
Alcohol and tobacco prices jumped 18.2 percent, while clothing and footwear climbed 14 percent. Housing and utilities surged 22.5 percent, largely due to higher rents and energy prices.
Healthcare recorded one of the highest annual increases at 23.9 percent, driven by a 28.9 percent rise in medical equipment prices and a 21 percent increase in hospital services. Transport costs rose by 21.1 percent, education by 10 percent, and restaurants and hotels by 13 percent.
The category of miscellaneous goods and services registered a 12.2 percent annual increase, with personal care products rising 13 percent and personal belongings up 27.2 percent.
