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)