China will continue to keep to the path of constructing a harmonious society via poverty alleviation and eradication efforts in the 11th five-year-program period that will start next year.

Liu Jian, head of the Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development with the State Council, while addressing a national forum on poverty reduction and development held in Dalian, northeast China's Liaoning Province, on Monday, said the practice of eradicating poverty through development projects will be continued.

The two targets of the country's poverty eradication endeavor -- the low-income people groups who have not solved the problem of having enough to eat and wear or who have not stabilized the situation of having enough to eat and wear -- should be clearly defined.

A file should be created and kept with detailed information about each poor family so that all households benefit from the poverty alleviation programs.

"In accordance with the principle of paying equal emphasis to the development of natural and human resources, we should value and solve the training and education of the poor," said Liu.

Efforts should be made to ensure a balanced economic and social development so as to eradicate poverty in a shorter period of time and mobilize the whole society to participate in the poverty alleviation efforts, the official said.

According to Liu, the population of people without enough to eat or wear in China's rural areas fell from 250 million in 1978 to 26.1 million by late 2004, and the rate of abject poverty also dropped from 30 percent to 2.8 percent.

(Xinhua News Agency October 19, 2005)