by Mao Pengfei, Nguon Sovan
PHNOM PENH, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- China's success in poverty alleviation is the greatest achievement in the world's history, and its experience is really useful for other developing countries to learn from, Cambodian government chief spokesman Phay Siphan said on Wednesday.
China has vowed to eradicate extreme poverty by the end of 2020. The country declared victory over its poverty reduction work earlier this month, saying that nearly 100 million Chinese have been lifted out of poverty since 2013.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Xinhua at his office in Phnom Penh, Siphan said international experiences showed that, when poverty rate is lower than 10 percent, poverty reduction work in one country enters the most difficult phase.
Eight years ago, he said, almost 100 million people were living in absolute poverty in China.
"Achieving this goal means lifting 10 million people out of poverty every year, or 1 million every month, or 20 persons every minute. It's almost a mission impossible," he said. "However, I'm optimistic about China's poverty reduction work because China's economy is very robust and the CPC (Communist Party of China) has been working relentlessly to achieve its goal."
Siphan said that China's endeavor to reach the goal amid the ongoing pandemic truly demonstrated the Chinese leadership's strong commitment to the people.
"This is a great work in the poverty reduction history in the world," the spokesman said. "It's unimaginable in other countries, when you see this, you know that they take it really seriously."
Siphan said he learned that over the past 40 years of reform and opening-up, more than 700 million people in China have been lifted out of poverty -- more than 70 percent of the global reduction in poverty.
"This is the greatest achievement in the poverty reduction history in the world," he said. "China's experience is very helpful to other countries, especially developing countries, like Cambodia."
For example, he said, the strategy of targeted approach requires officials to identify impoverished individuals and the factors that led to their poverty, and then a tailored relief plan is mapped out for each household or individual to get out of poverty.
"We saw many vivid examples of alleviating poverty by providing more educational resources for young generations, developing tourism in rural areas and establishing and introducing new agricultural projects to farmers," Siphan said.
"Those methods are very inspiring for Cambodia, which is also working hard to reduce the poverty rate," he noted.
He said Cambodia has been working with China in this field, such as building schools, digging pumping wells in rural areas, and developing tourism and modern agriculture. Enditem
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