China raises poverty threshold to 2,300 yuan

China yesterday annonuced a new standard for defining poverty as it aims to close the country's yawning wealth gap.

The central authorities have decided to raise the poverty threshold to 2,300 yuan in terms of the annual net income of farmers, an 80 per cent increase over the 1,274 yuan standard in 2010.

With the sharp increase, China's poverty line gets a boost closer to the international standard of $1.25 a day, the standard established by the World Bank in 2008.

According to a government white paper on poverty reduction released earlier this month, the country reduced its poverty figures for rural regions to 26.88 million at the end of 2010 from 94.22 million a decade ago.

The new poverty line would make 128 million people eligible for government anti-poverty subsidies, experts said.

In an address at a national poverty alleviation meet at the Great Hall of the People, president Hu Jintao said that poverty reduction was a "significant and urgent task."