Uzbekistan intends to cooperate with China in the area of poverty reduction. This became known on September 26 at the International Online Conference "Expanding Cooperation in Poverty Reduction".
Among the conference attendees were Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, UN First Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed, UN Deputy Secretary General Lew Zhenming, Foreign Ministers of Egypt, Kazakhstan, Peru, the Philippines, South Africa and other developing countries.
According to the press service of the Ministry of Economic Development and Poverty Reduction, the delegation of Uzbekistan noted the need to enhance global cooperation in the field of poverty reduction, and also separately highlighted the role of China, given the country's successful experience in the fight against poverty.
The Chinese Foreign Minister and UN representatives stressed that a global pandemic threatens to push about 70-100 million people in the world into extreme poverty. In this regard, the importance of strategic partnership in the field of poverty reduction, strengthening the role of financial and technical assistance, which has become an even more important factor in the context of a pandemic, was noted.
The Uzbek authorities proposed the creation of a legal basis for cooperation between Uzbekistan and China in the field of poverty reduction, the organization of a business trip for employees of ministries and departments to the PRC to study the experience of reducing poverty, as well as attracting a consultant from the Chinese side to the Ministry of Economic Development and Poverty Reduction.
Earlier, the Deputy Prime Minister/Minister of Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Jamshid Kuchkarov said that it is impossible to reduce poverty merely by handing people cash. According to him, the factors that facilitate the poverty reduction are the development of the economy, entrepreneurship, education, and healthcare. He pointed out that the policy of the government of Uzbekistan was aimed at lifting the population out of poverty, as well as by using social protection measures to prevent people from falling into poverty from falling into poverty.
China's poverty rate reportedly fell from 88% in 1981 to 0.7% in 2015, as measured by the percentage of people living on the equivalent of US$ 1.9 or less a day at PPP in 2011.
