CHINA’S success in poverty reduction has demonstrated to the global community that the first goal of “No Poverty” among the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is attainable, a high-ranking United Nations official said Friday.

“China gives us an affirmation that SDG 1 - No Poverty is attainable even in a country with 1.4 billion population,” Jorge Chediek, U.N. secretary general’s envoy on South-South Cooperation and director of the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC), told Xinhua in an exclusive interview through email.

“China has made impressive achievements in the fight against poverty, which is also a significant contribution to global poverty eradication,” he said when commenting on the Government Work Report delivered by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to the third session of the 13th National People’s Congress, the national legislature, in Beijing on Friday morning.

China provides the world, especially the Global South, an example of how economic policies and social policies have managed to take hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, Chediek said.

Other world experts and scholars also said that the report reflects the Central Government’s firm determination to achieve poverty alleviation goals this year, despite impact from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ivona Ladjevac, head of the center for the Belt and Road Initiative at the Institute of International Politics and Economics in Serbia, said that the report “reaffirmed the government’s decisiveness of fulfilling the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and the fight against poverty.”

Ladjevac said that 2019 has been a successful year for China. “The international scene became very demanding, so China put a lot of effort to keep stable its internal development no matter to external influences,” said the scholar.

Adrian Bonilla, a professor at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in Quito (FLACSO) and an expert on international politics, said China has withstood the test of the epidemic and he believes that China will definitely minimize the impact of the epidemic on economic development and reach the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects this year.

Noting that China has placed poverty alleviation on top of the country’s economic and social development agenda, the expert said China’s efforts and achievements in poverty alleviation have set a good example to the world.

China has, through arduous efforts, achieved decisive results in curbing the epidemic. According to the government report, in the face of global challenges including the public health crisis and severe economic recession, all countries should work together.

China stands ready to work with other countries to strengthen international cooperation on epidemic control, the report said.

(Xinhua)