East China's Jiangxi Province will relocate the people living in remote mountainous areas to better-off places in the next three to five years, according to a provincial conference on rural work.
In Jiangxi, there are 80,000 to 90,000 people living in areas with harsh natural environment, most of whom are leading very poor lives and facing great difficulties in relieving poverty.
As a pilot project, around 10,000 rural residents living in reservoir areas and remote mountains in the counties of Xiushui, Wannian and Suichuan will be moved to wealthier places, and each person will be given a subsidy of 3,000 yuan (US$360).
Since a nationwide campaign of alleviating absolute poverty was launched in 1994, the population living under the poverty line in Jiangxi has declined from 4.5 million to 900,000.
However, there are still a considerable number of poor people living in remote mountainous areas in the province, and more efforts will be made to improve their living conditions, local officials say.
(Xinhua News Agency February 23, 2003)
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