As advocated and organized by the State Council, 138 central government administrations have beeninvolved in reducing poverty in poor areas. Meanwhile, China Juvenile Foundation, All-China Charity Foundation and China Poverty Alleviation Foundation have actively participated in poverty reduction activities. Private enterprises have launched the Guangcai Cause Program aimed at developing economy and solving practical problems in poor areas. The central government in 1996 called coastal provinces to participate in the East-West Poverty Reduction Cooperation Program aimed at helping poor provinces in western China on the basis of "mutual supplement, mutual benefit and common progress" . All these departments, organizations and individuals have made outstanding contributions to alleviating and eradicating poverty in China and to facilitating the growth of poor areas.

　　9、Initiate and expand exchange and collaboration with international organizations in the field of poverty reduction. Fundamentally speaking, addressing China' s poverty shall mainly depend on the efforts of the Chinese people. But assistance and support from the developed countries and international organizations will undoubtedly accelerate the process of China' s poverty reduction cause. Since 1990s, remarkable progress has been made in this regard. We have had substantial collaboration with international organizations such as the World Ban, UNDP, bilateral collaboration with the Dutch and Japanese governments as well as with Ford Foundation and World Vision International. These collaborations are extremely effectively and have played a direct and significant role in alleviating poverty in China. On the one hand, implementation of these collaborative projects has helped to resolve feeding and clothing problems of the poor, and on the other hand, these projects have brought to us international poverty reduction experience and scientific management approaches, which have contributed to improving the overall quality of poverty reduction work in China. The importance of the latter is greater, more profound and farther-reaching.

　　Whether from the perspective of the actual progress of China' s poverty reduction work or measured by international standard, the achievements attained with China' s poverty reduction work are both inspiring and encouraging. The number of poor in China dropped from 250 million in 1978 to 34 million in 1999. Though the pace of poverty reduction has been uneven across the years, on average over 10 million have lifted out of poverty annually. Over the past two decades, rural poverty incidence in China decreased from 30% to about 3%. Based on the requirement and objective of the Chinese government, another 10 million rural poor would escape from poverty at the end of the year 2000. If such a pace is sustained, it is expected that, with the effort this year, the overwhelming majority of the poor - except for those who are physically disabled and need to be taken care of by social security system and except for a small number of destitute people who live in places with extremely deficient resources and do not have adequate living and production conditions - will be provided with adequate food and clothes at the beginning of the 2V* century. If this objective is attamed, we can definitely say that the Chinese government' s objective of basically resolving the feeding and clothing problems of the rural by the end of this century has been achieved. TBs is a great historical accomplishment. It is a thousand- year-long dream of the Chinese people. It is a historical climax since the Zhenguan Prosperity Times in Tang Dynasty and Kangxi-Qianlong Heydays in Qing Dynasty. The Chinese people should be proud of this.