In a meet­ing of the Asian Eco­nomic and Social Coun­cil, China and India have both sub­mit­ted reports detail­ing their economies. China says they can meet some of the Mil­len­nium Devel­op­ment Goals ahead of sched­ule, while India reports a focus on health issues for those in poverty.

From the IPS, reporter Thalif Deen breaks down the reports.

Since 1978, China has accel­er­ated devel­op­ment and reduced its pop­u­la­tion liv­ing in “absolute poverty” from 250 mil­lion to 15 mil­lion, accord­ing to a new report sub­mit­ted by the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment to the annual min­is­te­r­ial meet­ing of the Eco­nomic and Social Coun­cil (ECOSOC) through Jul. 31.

“We firmly believe that China will achieve the Mil­len­nium Devel­op­ment Goals (MDGs) fully and on sched­ule, thereby mak­ing an impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion to the achieve­ment of the Goals at the global level,” the report said.

China also boasts it is “the ear­li­est among devel­op­ing coun­tries to meet the MDGs of erad­i­cat­ing extreme poverty and hunger”.

The MDGs include a 50 per­cent reduc­tion in extreme poverty and hunger; uni­ver­sal pri­mary edu­ca­tion; pro­mo­tion of gen­der equal­ity; reduc­tion of child mor­tal­ity by two-thirds; cut­backs in mater­nal mor­tal­ity by three-quarters; com­bat­ing the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other dis­eases; ensur­ing envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­ity; and devel­op­ing a North-South global part­ner­ship for development.

China is one of the few devel­op­ing nations to pub­licly declare its com­mit­ment to meet all eight MDGs by 2015, while most coun­tries have declared their inabil­ity to meet the dead­line, a sit­u­a­tion made worse by the global finan­cial crisis.

Mean­while, in a report titled “India: Urban Poverty Report 2009″, the Min­istry of Hous­ing and Urban Poverty Alle­vi­a­tion points out that over 80 mil­lion poor peo­ple live in cities and towns of India.

India has shared the growth pat­tern of some of the fastest grow­ing regions in Asia, accord­ing to the study. The coun­try has wit­nessed around 8.0 per­cent growth in gross domes­tic prod­uct (GDP) in the last cou­ple of years.

But India’s urban pop­u­la­tion is increas­ing at a faster rate than its total pop­u­la­tion of 1.16 billion.

Over­all, India’s pop­u­la­tion growth has been steadily decreas­ing and con­tin­ues to do so, says Pro­fes­sor Gita Sen of the Cen­tre for Pub­lic Pol­icy at the Bangalore-based Indian Insti­tute of Man­age­ment. She said that National Fam­ily Health Sur­veys point to impor­tant reduc­tions in the num­ber of chil­dren that women want to have.

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