Distinguished Mr. Jiang Jianguo, Distinguished guests, Dear comrades, Ladies and Gentlemen,This year marks the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening up. Structured around “Building a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind through International Cooperation on Poverty Reduction”, this Forum is of much significance. On behalf of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development of China, which is one of the hosts of this Forum, I would like to extend a warm welcome to all the representatives. I would like to pay high tribute to the guests of different fields and international organizations who have long been committed to reducing poverty and promoting development in China.Reform and opening up is the only way for China to achieve prosperity and development and a crucial tool to continously make new achievements in its modernization. Poverty eradication is a common goal of all mankind and a critical issue in the development of the current era. Development is the foundation of, but cannot by itself lead to, poverty reduction. The Communist Party of China and the Chinese government have always taken eradicating poverty, improving living standards, and achieving common prosperity as the purposes of governance. When the decision of reform and opening up was made 40 years ago, China began its large-scale poverty alleviation in an organized and planned manner. With every step forward in its economic and social development, China has increased the standards for poverty alleviation and strengthened its alleviation efforts. China has been promoting economic development and poverty reduction in synchrony, effectively avoiding the widening of polarization and the falling into the middle-income trap. Over the past 40 years, China has lifted over 700 million rural people out of poverty, a major contribution to global poverty reduction. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, China has put forward objectives, missions, and basic strategies concerning poverty alleviation, reformed and innovated poverty reduction systems and mechanisms, and launched an all-out fight against poverty based on the new requirements for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and the changes in the poverty situation. In recent years, we have constructed or reconstructed more than 500,000 kilometers of rural roads and provided safe drinking water for more than 14 million people. Over 7 million dilapidated houses have been renovated in rural areas and 8.7 million people have been relocated from inhospitable areas. Over 520 billion yuan has been disbursed in micro-credit projects to support the development of industries for the poor, involving more than 13 million poor households. Almost all the natural villages have been powered by electricity; 71 percent of natural villages now have internet access; 97 thousand poorly-built schools for compulsory education have been transformed; cumulatively more than 4.2 million patients in poverty with serious or chronic illnesses have received treatment and been cured. China has also done a lot of work in poverty alleviation through ecological restoration. Over the past five years, we have lifted 68.53 million people out of poverty, with an annual poverty reduction rate of over 10 million people, setting a record in the history of China’s poverty alleviation. It is expected that by the end of this year, the number of people regarded as in poverty under the current standard in China will be reduced by more than 80%. More than two-thirds of China’s impoverished villages and about 50% of China’s poverty-stricken counties will no longer be regarded as in poverty. Therefore, we can say that the past few years have opened a new chapter in China’s poverty alleviation. China’s historic achievements in poverty alleviation demonstrate the political and institutional advantages of the CPC leadership, which, in my view, have demonstrated the following characteristics of the times.First, China has a strong core of leadership. The CPC and the Chinese government attach great importance to the fight against poverty. General Secretary Xi Jinping, as China’s core of leadership, has always put poverty alleviation in an important position in the governance of China. He studies the issue, deploys strategies, and supervises the progress in person. He has visited all the contiguous poverty-stricken areas in China. Among all his domestic visits, more than 40 are about poverty alleviation. Besides, he has convened special seminars on poverty alleviation research every year. For more than a year since the 19th National Congress of the CPC, General Secretary Xi Jinping has issued important directives on poverty alleviation every month. With first-hand experiences of poverty, rich experience in poverty alleviation, and a strong sense of responsibility for poverty alleviation, the core of leadership of the CPC and China is the key to motivating and leading the fight against poverty.Second, China has a specific target for poverty reduction, which is to ensure that the rural population and all the counties counted as in poverty under the current standards will all be lifted out of poverty, and the problem of regional poverty will be resolved by 2020. The standard according to which poor people are regarded as getting rid of poverty is to have a per capita income steadily higher than the national poverty alleviation standard, and to be ensured adequate food and clothing, compulsory education, basic health care, and housing security. The attainment of this goal means that China will eliminate absolute poverty in a historic way and achieve the poverty reduction target set in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development of the United Nations 10 years ahead of schedule.Third, China has a targeted basic strategy. The basic strategy of targeted poverty reduction and alleviation embodies General Secretary Xi Jinping’s 40-year exploration. It is also a major innovation of China’s poverty alleviation theory and practice. In the early years of reform and opening up, there was widespread poverty in China’s rural areas. Inclusive policies and measures were in need to benefit most areas and the majority of the public. Now the picture is quite different. We need to adopt site-specific measures, develop policies according to different categories, and provide targeted assistance. We have organized millions of people to collect and verify poverty information from village to village and from household to household, setting up a unified registration system to find out whom we should support. Millions of civil servants have been sent to poor villages, who live there to decide who should be supported and how to support them. Now there are over one million working personnel from Party and government organs, enterprises and public institutions living in these villages. They are involved in poverty alleviation, as a solution to the problem of who to help the poor. We have strengthened infrastructure and public services to improve working and living conditions in poor areas. Identifying the specific causes of poverty, we have taken concrete measures to help the poor people, solving the problem of how to help them. We have carried out specific assessment and inspection of the people and counties no longer counted as in poverty, addressing the problem of how to lift people out of poverty and ensuring that the effectiveness of poverty alleviation can withstand the test of practice and history. With all these measures, we have comprehensively deepened rural reform, trained massive rural cadres and talent at the grass-roots level, improved the governance capacity in rural areas, and brought rural work to a higher level.Fourth, China has an extraordinary set of policies and measures. We have established an accountability system and built a robust working mechanism in which the central government is responsible for the overall planning, governments at the provincial level assume overall responsibility and governments at municipal and county levels are responsible for program implementation. The heads of Party committees and governments of 22 provinces and autonomous regions in central and western regions have signed to the Central Authorities letters of commitment on poverty elimination. During the fight against poverty, chief Party and government leaders of poor counties shall not be transferred or promoted to another position CPC Party Secretaries at provincial, municipal, county, township and village levels are all responsible in the fight against poverty. A policy system of multi-dimensional poverty alleviation has been designed, and beyond-conventional policies and measures have been issued, striking a combination blow to poverty. We have worked to improve the production and living conditions of the poor, support the reduction of poverty through industrial development and employment, and resettle the poor people from inhospitable places. An investment system has been developed to bolster fiscal, financial and land policy support. At present, over one trillion yuan of funds are invested annually in impoverished counties, townships and villages. A mobilization system has been built to mobilize the Party and the entire society to participate in poverty alleviation. We have created a supervision system to ensure that responsibilities are fulfilled, policies are implemented and work is done. We have also set up an annual assessment system, assessing the effectiveness of poverty alleviation and development carried out by provincial-level Party committees and governments, commending and rewarding those with good performance, and holding accountable those who do poorly.Ladies and gentlemen,China has more than 30 million people living below the current poverty threshold. They are the poorest among the impoverished. In deeply poverty-stricken areas, poverty incidence is relatively high and the task for poverty alleviation is tough. Despite those difficulties, we have determined to win the fight against poverty comprehensively and to ensure that by 2020, a moderately prosperous society in all respects will be built. We are fully aware that China will remain in the primary stage of socialism for a long time and that unbalanced and inadequate development is the principal social contradiction. Winning that fight will just eliminate absolute poverty in China but relative poverty will remain for a long time. Poverty reduction is still a long-term arduous task for China, and we will remain dedicated to reducing povertyResponding to General Secretary Xi Jinping’s proposal to “build a poverty-free Community with a Shared Future for Mankind that strives for common development”, we hope to have more exchanges and cooperation in poverty alleviation with other countries and international organizations, learn from each other and jointly advance the cause of global poverty reduction.Finally, I wish this Forum a complete success. I wish all friends good health and hope that everything goes well with your work.Thank you!Translated by Mo Hao