The World Bank on Friday praised China's efforts to reduce
poverty by developing agriculture, but said more funding is needed
if it is to further lift the standard of living among the rural
poor.
The country's biggest achievement in the past two decades is
poverty reduction, Sari Soderstrom, rural sector coordinator of the
World Bank China, said on Friday at the release of the latest World
Development Report 2008.
World Bank economists said poverty reduction has been made
possible as agricultural productivity rises.
"Agricultural growth has been highly successful in reducing
rural poverty in East Asia over the past 15 years," said Francois
Bourguignon, chief economist and senior vice-president of the
bank.
In China and India, agricultural productivity has gone up while
poverty has been going down in recent decades, said Harold
Alderman, World Bank economist and co-author of the report,
"Agriculture for Development".
"There has been sustained progress in both countries."
Many countries have sought to learn from China's experience,
said Sari. "Most developing countries are looking to China to try
to duplicate recipes of success for this."
China reduced the number of poverty-stricken people by 195
million - by the World Bank standard - during the 1990-2002 period,
according to a report released by the State Council Leading Group
Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development on Wednesday.
That number accounts for more than 90 percent of the total
reduction worldwide in the period.
China has been increasing funding to agriculture and rural areas
in its drive to build a new countryside, as it tries to narrow the
rural-urban development gap.
The government abolished agricultural tax at the beginning of
last year.
The World Bank acknowledged the efforts of transforming
economies, including China, to provide better incentives, but
warned that the real challenges lie ahead.
"Rural poverty accounts for an extraordinary 82 percent of total
poverty in transforming countries," said Robert Zoellick, World
Bank Group president.
"A greater focus on agriculture is essential when considering
population pressures, declining farm sizes, water scarcity and
environmental contamination and the need to develop lagging
high-poverty areas."
The World Bank suggested that farmers need to be helped to
develop high-value products, such as horticulture, poultry, fish
and dairy, and financial access should be made easier for them.
"State-owned banks (in developing countries) would not like to
lend to rural development although they are told to," said
Sari.
Agricultural spending also needs to be channeled in a more
efficient way, she said.
(China Daily October 20, 2007)
