Living standards rise in the nation's rural areas

TIMELINE

December 2012: During a visit to Fuping county, Hebei province, President Xi Jinping says the most arduous and heavy task facing China in finishing the construction of a moderately prosperous society lies in the rural areas, especially the poverty-stricken regions.

November 2013: During an inspection tour in Hunan province, Xi visits Shibadong, an impoverished village that is home to people from the Miao ethnic group, where he puts forward the concept of "targeted poverty alleviation" in China's countryside.

April 2014: The State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development issues a plan on the registration of the impoverished population, mobilizing millions of grassroots cadres to carry out poverty identification work.

October 2015: Xi delivers a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the 2015 Global Poverty Reduction and Development Forum. He says China has lifted more than 600 million people out of poverty in the past 30 years.

End of 2016: Shibadong village, where the "targeted poverty alleviation" policy was put forward, is classified as not longer "impoverished".

October 2017: At the 2017 Global Poverty Reduction and Development Forum in Beijing, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says China had lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and the country's poverty alleviation experience could provide useful lessons for other developing countries.

End of 2018: The Derung ethnic group in Yunnan province announces that its home region has been officially removed from the list of impoverished areas.

June 2019: Huang Wenxiu, a village official in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region in charge of poverty alleviation efforts, dies in a flash flood on June 17. The graduate of Beijing Normal University was 30 years old.

November 2020: China announces that all remaining 52 impoverished counties have been lifted out of poverty, marking the official removal of all 832 counties on the list.

February 2021: At a grand gathering held to mark China's achievements in poverty alleviation and to honor its model fighters against poverty, Xi declares that victory in the battle against poverty has been achieved and China has completed the task of eliminating extreme poverty.