China releases blue paper on poverty alleviation

Important progress has been made in poverty alleviation efforts by Chinese enterprises, a blue paper released on Dec 5 has concluded.

The document from the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) said this was the result of increased investment.

A total of 583 listed enterprises reported their annual investment on poverty alleviation, totaling 6.47 billion yuan ($942 million). The average investment of each enterprise is about 11 million yuan.

The top 10 enterprises on spending have helped more than 500,000 poor people, according to the paper.

Thirty-five successful and demonstrative cases were cited, such as PetroChina's precise policies on poverty alleviation, China FAW's innovative model and Ping An Insurance's efforts on village projects.

The paper also points out some of the shortcomings of the process, such as inferior management, and lack of communication and transparency.

Only 1.69 percent of the listed companies have set up poverty alleviation departments, and only 3.07 percent of them have selected group leaders for the work.