‘Driving in nails' spirit

We should embrace the 'driving in nails' spirit. We must diligently work and persist until the job is done. We must have the resolve and patience to follow the blueprint to the end and not start with a bang and end with a whimper or give up halfway through without finishing the job.

— Xi addressing the Second Plenary Session of the 18th CPC National Congress

Meng Rouyu, now a junior high school girl, waves in the fields on May 7, 2017 (R) and herself on July 16, 2012 in Nongyong village of Dahua county, South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. [Photo/Xinhua]

Thanks to its perseverance, resolve and the spirit of driving in nails, the CPC has succeeded in turning China into the world's second-biggest economy, the biggest trader of goods and the third-largest direct foreign investor, lifting China's per capita GDP to close to $8,000.

Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, China has lifted on average 10 million rural people out of poverty every year from 2013 to 2016. The total number of people lifted out of poverty in both rural and urban areas during the period was more than 55.64 million.

As a percentage of China's total population, the number of poor people dropped from 10.2 percent in 2012 to 4.5 percent in 2016 as incomes in poverty-stricken areas rose more than the national average increased.