Distinguished Mr. Tang Guocai, Consul General of China in Mumbai
Distinguished Mr. Kulkarni,Guests from India and China
Good afternoon!
It gives me great pleasure to participate in this workshop on poverty alleviation, and meet friends from India and China online. On behalf of the Foreign Affairs Office of People's Government Yunnan province and Yunnan Center for International Studies, I would like express warm welcome and greetings to all the distinguished guests for participating in today's webinar. I would like to express my gratitude to the Chinese Consulate General in Mumbai for its great support to this event. My appreciation also goes to the SIES, Free Press Journal, Yunnan Center for International Studies for co-hosting this workshop.
India and China, both as great ancient civilizations, "have a feeling of mutual learning from each other in ancient times, and have shared weal and woe, and now have a common cause of rejuvenation". As the two largest developing countries in the world, we are facing with many common problems and challenges in development. Strengthening exchanges, enhancing understanding and learning from each other will help us achieve common development, benefit the two peoples and promote regional prosperity.
Yunnan is located in the southwest part of China, with an area of 394,000 square kilometers and a population of more than 47 million, of which one third is ethnic minorities, making it the province with the largest variety of ethnic minorities in China. Yunnan shares 4,060 kilometers borderline with Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, has always been an important window for China to South Asia and Southeast Asia since ancient times. Yunnan is a beautiful border province with mountainous landscape and diversified ethnic groups. At present, Following the guidance of General Secretary Xi Jinping, we are building model area of ethnic cohesion and progress, vanguard of ecological civilization and powerhouse of china toward South Asia and Southeast Asia. We are leveraging our advantages in location and resources to promote high-quality development. In 2020, our provincial GDP reached 2.45 trillion yuan, ranking 18th in the country.
Living a better life without poverty is the common aspiration of people around the world. It is with this vision that the Chinese government has always placed poverty reduction in a prominent position in governance. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, people of all ethnic groups in the country have United and acted as one, mobilized contribution of all sides, pooled resources together, and fully energized the motivation of the poor people. China poverty reduction is unprecedented in scale, and benefit the largest number of needy people. It is a historic achievement in the field of poverty reduction. We have completed the arduous task of eliminating absolute poverty and reached poverty reduction goal in UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable development, 10 years ahead of schedule.
As a frontier province in southwest China, Yunnan was one of the provinces with the deepest poverty, the largest poverty area and the largest number of poor people. In recent years, the CPC Yunnan provincial Committee and People’s Government of Yunnan Province, following the guidance of General Secretary Xi Jinping, earnestly practiced targeted poverty alleviation. People of all ethnic groups in the province made unremitting efforts, and achieved great victory in fighting poverty in Yunnan, absolute poverty which has plagued Yunnan for thousands of years became history. What we do in Yunnan is a miniature of China's effort in poverty reduction, and we are willing to share our experience with the international community. In this April, diplomatic envoys from 28 countries visited Yunnan. They went to Malipo County, Wenshan Prefecture to learn about the project of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs there for assisting local development, they got the first-hand experience and information about the new outlook of villages and local people. Just last week, diplomatic envoys, officials, experts and scholars from 18 countries and four international organizations including the United Nations gathered in Nujiang Prefecture of our province to attend the International Forum on Poverty Governance and Modernization. They discussed the enlightenment of China's poverty reduction experience on global poverty governance. Key words such as targeted poverty alleviation, green poverty alleviation and poverty alleviation by developing industries have been mentioned frequently, promoted international exchanges and cooperation in this field on the basis of mutual respect.
China's poverty alleviation is a great undertaking participated by all Chinese people. Governments at all levels, departments, organizations, universities and enterprises have played irreplaceable roles. Since 1995, our office has been supporting Jinping County, Honghe Prefecture, and has sent nearly 100 cadres to work in villages there. We have invested more than 50 million yuan, implemented more than 120 projects, thus made important contributions to the poverty alleviation there. At present, we also have 10 cadres stationed in Jinping County, working for rural revitalization, further consolidating the achievements of poverty alleviation making new contributions to better-off life for the local people.
As one of the Chinese provinces near India, our province has always attached great importance to exchanges and cooperation with India. Over the years, the two sides have actively participated in and promoted the BCIM Regional Cooperation and BCIM Economic corridor. We have cooperated in economy, trade, education, tourism, medical and health care, women and youth exchanges, with good interactions. We sincerely hope and believe that the Indian government and people will win the fight against the Covid-19. We are willing and looking forward to further friendly exchanges and cooperation between Yunnan and India in various fields, and making our due contribution to bilateral relations.
Last but not least, I wish all of you enjoy health and happiness. Warmly welcome Indian friends, Consul General and other colleagues of the Chinese Consulate General in Mumbai to visit Yunnan after Covid-19. I wish this webinar a complete success.