Premier Wen
Jiabao met with World Food Program (WFP) Executive Director
James T. Morris in Beijing on Monday to discuss China's future
cooperation with the UN body.
China and the WFP have been working together since 1979. During
the past 25 years, the UN food agency has sponsored more than 70
programs in the country and provided some US$925 million in
aid.
In the mid-1990s, China attained overall food self-sufficiency
and by the end of 2003 it was committing twice the value of
resources WFP raised for China, providing US$37 million for the
agency's operations in the country in 2002.
China began contributing to the WFP's work elsewhere in the
world in 2000: In the three years through 2003, it committed almost
US$5 million to these programs, with the bulk of the funding going
to Africa.
Morris said it is an extraordinary human achievement that China
has moved 300 million people out of hunger and poverty over the
years, noting that China has accumulated more experience in
alleviating poverty than any other country at any time in
history.
Both parties reaffirmed their commitment to long-term
cooperation.
Some 30 million people still live below the poverty line in
China. Worldwide, some 850 million people -- half of them children
-- go hungry.
Morris said China's efforts to provide nine-year compulsory
education for all children is the most powerful investment it can
make in the future of the country and the world. He also expressed
the belief that China will accomplish its goals in the next phase
of poverty alleviation.
The Chinese government has increased to more than 10 billion
yuan its annual budget for improving living conditions and
agricultural production in poor areas. It is also cutting
agriculture taxes and increasing funding for education and health
care in rural areas.
In 2003, China fed 1.3 billion people -- 20 percent of the
world's population -- on 7 percent of the world's arable land. Per
capita daily food availability and consumption rose from 1,700 kcal
in 1960 to 2,570 kcal in 1995.
Although by the mid-1990s China had achieved its major target of
ensuring sufficient food production at the national level,
significant regional disparities in food security still exist, with
remote and underdeveloped areas continuing to suffer shortages.
Morris and his entourage are in China at the invitation of the
Ministry of Agriculture, which works closely with the WFP. Before
arriving in Beijing, Morris also visited poor rural areas in
northwest China's Gansu Province.
WFP, the food aid organization of the United Nations, became
operational in 1963. It provides relief assistance to victims of
natural and man-made disaster, and supplies food aid to people in
developing countries with the aim of stimulating self-reliant
communities.
(Xinhua News Agency, China.org.cn, CRI? December 14,
2004)