During visits to farming villages, president offers residents hope

President Xi Jinping, while visiting a village in North China's Shanxi province, called on Wednesday for greater efforts and more effective measures to help those living in poverty.

The people's longing for a happy life is the goal that the Communist Party of China is striving for, Xi said during a stop in the village of Songjiagou, Kelan county, during his Shanxi inspection tour.

The village is newly built for local people who relocated from poverty-stricken homes nearby.

Xi also is general secretary of the CPC Central Committee. The committee is making efforts now to lead people from poverty and to get rich, and the people's livelihoods will "rise joint by joint like sesame flowers on the stem," the president said.

He called on the villagers to "roll up their sleeves and work on" following the steps of the CPC Central Committee.

During the tour, Xi also visited three families in the mountainous village of Zhaojiawa, which also is beset by poverty. Xi talked with villagers about the causes of their poverty and how to improve their incomes. He also went to the fields to inspect crops and check on the water in the village's only well.

Xi recognized the local government's efforts to relocate villagers from impoverished areas to newly built residences. He urged local authorities to take more measures to help poor people improve living conditions and raise their incomes.

In the village of Zhaojiawa, Xi held talks with civil servants who were dispatched from the Kelan county people's congress for the village's poverty-alleviation work. He encouraged the civil servants to have intensive contacts with villagers and help them out of poverty.

Noting that the CPC has dispatched a number of officials and teams to take charge of poverty relief at grassroots organizations in recent years, Xi said that the measures are effective for poverty alleviation. He encouraged the promotion of officials capable of poverty reduction.

The president has paid much attention to poverty reduction in recent years. In his New Year's address, Xi said that what he cares most about is poor people.

The poverty reduction work requires tailored relief policies and precise measures, and sometimes patience and accuracy, like "doing embroidery", Xi told lawmakers during the top legislature's annual session in March.

Under a standard set in 2011, China categorizes individuals with an annual income less than 2,300 yuan ($334) as poverty-stricken. The CPC has promised to lift all those still living in poverty out of that status by the end of 2020.

The number of people living in poverty nationwide was reduced by 12.4 million last year to 43.35 million. The government will lift another 10 million people out of poverty this year, according to the Government Work Report.

During the inspection tour on Wednesday, Xi also visited a memorial hall in Xingxian county, Lyuliang, and presented flowers at the site for revolutionaries there.

At a former headquarters of a military command of the Communist Party of China during World War II, Xi urged the public not to forget the revolutionaries who contributed to the success of the revolution, the resistance against Japanese invaders during World War II, the founding of the People's Republic of China, and the socialist revolution and construction.

anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn