30 million people live on less than a dollar a day
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) The number of Chinese living on less than a dollar a day rose by about 800,000 in 2003. For the first time poverty increased rather than decreased in almost 20 years of economic reform and efforts in reducing the ranks of the poor, this according to Liu Jian, deputy director of director of the government's Poverty Alleviation and Development office.
In 2003, the new poor survived on an annual per capita income of 637 yuans (about US$ 77) or less, which is China's poverty line, and far below the world average of 2,622 yuans (about US$ 317). In some of the less developed provinces such as Sichuan or those struck by natural disasters such as Anhui, Heilongjiang, Henan, and Shaanxi the situation is even worse.
Mr. Liu said that last year 29 million people (3% of China's population) lacked adequate food, clothing and shelter. One factor behind the worsening situation was the decline in social assistance to the poor. From 1994 to the early 2000s, the number of poor directly benefiting from government aid dropped from 6 to 2 million.
Corruption was another important factor. Public assistance is often diverted by local officials for their own benefit. According to the People's Daily (Renmin Ribao), a government audit showed that from 1997 to the first half of 1999 out of the 48.8 billion yuans (almost 5 billion, over US$ 6 billion) spent on poverty relief almost 10% (4,3 billion yuans) were misappropriated, embezzled or used for non authorised purposes. The newspaper added that with the combined poverty relief from government, international and non government sources exceeding 30 billion yuans, every poor Chinese should in principle have in his or her pocket about an additional thousand yuans per year.
The nearly 30 million Chinese living below the poverty line are not alone. Natural disasters, personal errors and bad luck threaten another 60 million who live just above it and could just as easily plunge below it.
Another factor complicating the picture is the growing gap between farming incomes and the rural poverty line. Mr. Liu Jian compared 2003 data with those of 1992 and found that the ratio of farmers' income to the rural poverty line grew from about two and a half times to over four.
For Wei Jie, executive dean of Tsinghua University's National Centre for Economic Research, these differences were to be expected given China's rate of urbanisation and industrialisation. "Many farmers go to cities as migrant workers and contribute most to the increased average income of farmers," he said. Until their residency status changes the authorities consider them as farmers. "Those who stay in their villages are usually not as skilled and make up a larger proportion of the poor population," Mr. Wei added.
According to the 2003 Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Program one Chinese in six (16.6%) lived on less than a dollar a day between 1992 and 2002. Almost half of the population (46.7%) lived on less than 2 dollars a day. Between 1999 and 2001 more than one Chinese in ten (11%) was malnourished. In 2000 one in four (one in three in rural areas) did not have access to clean water; six in ten had no access to adequate health care. In 2001 infant mortality at birth was 31 per 1000; 39 per 1000 in the first five years of life. (MR)
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10/01/2007
