President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang have given instructions on poverty reduction ahead of China’s third poverty relief day on Oct 16.

President Xi urged local authorities to leave no stone unturned in the solid implementation of precision poverty relief measures to lift the nations’ poor out of poverty.

He made the remarks in a congratulatory statement sent to a commendation meeting held on Oct 16 in Beijing, which honored organizations and individuals for their outstanding poverty alleviation work.

The President also called for combined efforts among local officials in poverty-stricken areas and all sectors of society to battle poverty and support the reform and innovation of poverty relief.

Premier Li also gave instructions, saying poverty alleviation was an important task in building a well-off society, which needs efforts from all sides. In past years, typical cases in poverty relief have emerged nationwide, which is a great contribution to the cause, the Premier said.

He sent his congratulations to groups and individuals who won the award, and expressed the hope that they could be role models for other workers to implement new development strategies deployed by the central government, and work harder on poverty alleviation.

Vice-Premier Wang Yang, also head of the State Council Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development, attended the commendation meeting and gave a speech. He said role models for poverty alleviation should be promoted and more social forces should be motivated to take part in poverty reduction efforts with improved policy support.

Over the past three decades, more than 600 million Chinese people were lifted out of poverty, about 70 percent of the world’s total. China became the first developing country to meet the millennium development target.

For coming years, the government has named poverty reduction as one of its top priorities, vowing to help the remaining 70 million poor people, who live below the poverty line of 2,300 yuan in annual income, shake off poverty and enjoy essential social services by 2020.