China may have reduced poverty in half in recent years, but with it’s large pop­u­la­tion there is still work to be done. We we’re reminded of that today when China announced that they still have 40 mil­lion farm­ers liv­ing below the poverty line. China has the third largest econ­omy in the world.

From this UPI story, we read more of China’s state­ment on the issue.

Fan Xiao­jian, head of China’s national poverty and devel­op­ment office, told the Web por­tal ifeng.com the global finan­cial cri­sis has hit the poor hard in China.

“China has invested 20 bil­lion yuan ($2.9 bil­lion) to reduce poverty this year, an increase of 3 bil­lion yuan ($439 mil­lion) from last year, and the largest invest­ment in poverty-relief in the last ten years,” he said, China Daily reported.

Fan, how­ever, said the income of the most poverty-stricken coun­ties in the coun­try rose 9.6 per­cent in the first three quar­ters of this year.