CHINA is prepared to share its experience of eliminating poverty with members of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO), President Xi Jinping said today.

“As the SCO rotating chair, China is willing to strengthen strategic contacts with each side, share experience in tackling poverty and deepen practical co-operation,” the Xinhua news agency reported the Chinese leader as saying in a message to participants at the SCO Forum on Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development as it opened in Xi’an, the administrative centre of Shaanxi province in north-west China.

Mr Xi said Beijing would strive to help more countries “follow the path of poverty eradication and sustainable development in accordance with national specifics.”

The Chinese president highlighted the importance of joint efforts to “build a beautiful world free of poverty with prosperity for all,” adding that improving people’s well-being is “a global challenge and a common goal for all nations.”

He recalled that China had achieved its target of eradicating poverty 10 years ahead of the deadline set in the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

Mr Xi insisted that poverty reduction was closely tied to development and that the SCO had promoted active cooperation on the issue in recent years and “achieved remarkable results.”

The Forum on Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development is organised by the SCO committee on good neighbourliness, friendship and co-operation and the north-west region’s authorities.

Over the past 40 years, the number of people in China with incomes below $1.90 per day (around £1.43), the International Poverty Line defined by the World Bank, has fallen by close to 800 million. 

This means that China has contributed around three-quarters of the global reduction in the number of people living in extreme poverty. 

The number of poor people in the country a fell by more than 770 million over the same period.