More than one million people in the rural areas of north China's Liaoning Province have been relieved from poverty in the past five years.
In this period, Liaoning has taken a series of measures to improve the basic living conditions and incomes of rural residents.
The province has established 252 welfare institutions for elderly people, and donated goods and money worth 1.2 billion yuan to poor residents.
In addition, the population of the people living below the poverty line in Liaoning has dropped to 400,000, accounting for only 2.3 percent of the total rural population in the province.
(Xinhua News Agency November 1, 2002)