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CHINA’S north-west region has ended absolute poverty, regional government chairman Shohrat Zakir said on Monday.
A total of 3.06 million rural people have been lifted out of poverty and all 35 poverty-stricken counties in the region — officially Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region — removed from the poverty list, he announced in his report to the regional legislature.
According to Mr Zakir, disposable income for urban residents grew last year by 5.8 per cent to 34,838 yuan and that of the rural population saw an 8.3 per cent increase to 14,056 yuan (£1, 593).
The impressive figures have been achieved thanks to policies that see some 70 per cent of Xinjiang’s fiscal expenditure and 80 per cent of aid funds from 19 provinces and municipalities spent at the grassroots level and on improving people’s livelihoods, he said.
The region added 461,100 new urban jobs in 2020, local authorities said today, adopting a variety of measures to help unemployed families find work.
The news from Xinjiang echoes growth patterns across the country.
China’s co-operatives lifted an incredible 1.13 million people out of poverty last year thanks to 3,152 projects, according to the All-China Federation of Supply and Marketing Co-operatives.
The federation reported today that among China’s co-operatives sales grew by 14.2 per cent, year on year, to 5.3 trillion yuan in 2020, with profits up by 11 per cent.
Criticism of China’s treatment of the mainly Sunni Muslim Uighur minority has grown more pointed: earlier this month China branded former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo a “doomsday clown” after he accused Beijing of a “genocide” against Xinjiang’s Uighur population.
China denies any abuses and says the steps it has taken are necessary to combat terrorism and a separatist movement. The region’s Uighur population has, in fact, risen slightly over the last 10 years from 46.6 to 51.1 per cent.
By contrast, the Han population fell from 40.4 to 36 per cent over the same period. Uighurs were exempted from China’s one-child policy, which was in place from 1979 to 2015.
