Authorities of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region two days ago announced confirmation that absolute poverty has been eliminated in the region’s remaining 10 counties. The counties are all located in the southern desert region, five of them in the Hotan Prefecture, where less than 4% of territory represents oasis areas. With this, more than 3.08 million residents of Xinjiang have now been led out of poverty.
To be considered out of absolute poverty by China’s official standards, requires not just a certain level of income, but stable access to education and medical care, among other physical economic parameters. To achieve that, the region put over 70% of its fiscal budget into improving the welfare of the people, Xinhua reported. In addition to securing access to services, there was a 9.1% average yearly growth in residential per-capita disposable income in the region from 2014-2019.
