China will strengthen cooperation with the UN International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) to reduce global poverty, a senior Chinese official said on Wednesday.

 

Addressing the 29th Session of the Governing Council of IFAD, Chinese Vice Finance Minister Li Yong said that in the past two decades, China had been effectively cooperating with the Rome-based IFAD, from which hundreds of thousands of poor farmers have benefited.

 

He said China will pledge US$16 million to the 7th funding increase of IFAD resources, an increase of 52.4 percent over China's last contribution to IFAD, whose aim is to reduce global poverty.

 

He added that China has made significant steps in poverty reduction, but that the successes can only be viewed as initial results.

 

"Because China is still confronted with new challenges in fighting against absolute rural poverty, mostly in central and western China, where the ecological environments are extremely harsh and the pace of poverty reduction is slowing down," he said.

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"China has no other alternative but to make long-term, arduous and relentless efforts to eliminate its poverty, and China still needs assistance and support from the international community," he said.

 

He also called on the international community to make relentless efforts in seeking a more consistent strategy for global poverty reduction.

 

"Achieving common prosperity through common development is a perpetual subject of today's world," Li said.

 

According to IFAD, which is charged with directly addressing rural poverty by increasing food production and increasing farmers' incomes, 1.2 billion people worldwide live in extreme poverty on less then US$1 a day.

 

The number is expected to rise to two billion by 2015 if current trends continue.

 

(Xinhua News Agency February 16, 2006)