At a press conference on the side-lines of the 13th NPC on May 28, People's Daily (May 28) reported that China’s Premier Li Keqiang said the government would focus its stimulus measures on domestic economics while admitting that China is a developing a country with a large population, with an average annual per capita disposable income of 30,000 yuan (US$4,213.30). There are 600 million people who have low and middle incomes, whose average monthly income is merely 1,000 yuan (US$ 140.40). He added, “It may be difficult even to rent an apartment with income of 1,000 yuan in a medium-sized city.” Li promised to make people’s livelihood a high priority. Li Keqiang said that the task of poverty alleviation is a “sophisticated commitment” that the CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping made to the entire society and that it must be completed as scheduled this year. Originally, there were 5 million people living in poverty. Under the impact of this epidemic, some more people may have fallen back to poverty, and the task of poverty alleviation has become even tougher.

(Comment: Poverty alleviation is a top priority for Xi Jinping. China has 52 officially recognised 'impoversihed counties' with 551,000 rural impoverished people concentrated in central and western regions. The three regions refer to the Tibet Autonomous Region, four Tibetan-inhabited provinces and four prefectures in southern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, while the three prefectures refer to Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province, Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan province and Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu province. The official poverty line in China is about one third of US$ 140.40 (about $47 per month or 4,000 yuan per year) and covers only about 550,000 people. The Chinese National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) later commented that most of these 600 million people are migrant workers.)