"China pledged to raise the line gradually some years ago because the government has realized the line is low that. Now, we still believe raising the poverty line should be a long-term strategy," said Fan.

And China is drafting the China Poverty Alleviation Development Guidelines for 2011-2020, and increasing the poverty line will be an important part of the guideline, said Fan.

The new guidelines aim to help China remarkably reduce the number of the poor by 2015, and fundamentally eliminate the poverty problem by 2020.

"It is a heavy task," said Fan.

In the past five years, the number of the poor reduced to 26.88 million in 2010 from 64.31 million from 2006.