The country has made significant progress in fighting poverty and will continue its involvement in the global effort to help the poor, an official said.

"The number of rural people in absolute poverty fell from 250 million in 1978 to 21.5 million last year. The national poverty rate is now 2.3 percent, down from 30.7 percent 30 years ago," Fan Xiaojian, deputy chief of the State Council Leading Group for Poverty Alleviation, said.

And the number of low-income earners dropped to 35.5 million in 2006 from 62.1 million in 2000. Low-income earners account for only 3.7 percent of the rural population, Fan said at the China-ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Expo in Ninning.

Fan shared China's experiences in fighting poverty with officials and experts from ASEAN countries at the forum.

"China has taken a government-led approach to reducing poverty and given all social resources full play to help lift people out of poverty," he said.

While focusing on people's livelihoods, China has also taken an active role in fighting poverty around the globe in recent years.

For example, the country set up the China International Poverty Alleviation Center in collaboration with the United Nations Develop Program (UNDP), held the first China-Africa Cooperation Forum and invited representatives from less-developed countries to seminars on the issue.

Fan said China will continue to assist developing countries with their efforts to fight poverty in the interest of simultaneous development.

"Transnational cooperation will facilitate regional poverty-elimination efforts," Renaud Meyer, UNDP's deputy representative to China, said.

But Fan acknowledged China still faces many challenges.

"The Chinese standard of poverty is relatively lower than the international benchmark. In fact, China has 100 million people living on less than US$1 a day, the poverty line drawn by the World Bank," said Fan.

(China Daily, Xinhua News Agency November 1, 2007)