China has made major progress in developing its economy and eradicating rural poverty over the past year despite the coronavirus pandemic,President Xi Jinping said in a New Year address Thursday. That compares with an IMF forecast for a global economic contraction of 4.4% for 2020, the worst plunge since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Xi called for increased international cooperation in fighting the virus, which is believed to have emerged from the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. “People across the world should make joint efforts to drive away the dark clouds of the pandemic at an early date and build the planet Earth into a better home for all humanity,” Xi said. Xi also hailed progress in lifting close to 100 million rural Chinese out of poverty over the last eight years and in “fully building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.”

Source: The Standard December 31, 2020 12:22 UTC