New government body to boost rural revitalization

China on Thursday unveiled a government body for rural revitalization, replacing an anti-poverty agency that has supercharged targeted poverty relief programs in rural regions over the past eight years.

The National Administration for Rural Revitalization was formally inaugurated at a brief ceremony held at the headquarters of the former State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development in north Beijing.

Wang Zhengpu, a veteran agricultural official, was appointed head of the new administration and a member of the Leading Party Members Group at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

The plaque of the anti-poverty office was taken down ahead of the ceremony. Created in 1986 under a different name, the office was tasked with poverty alleviation and rural development. It got a more prominent role in recent years as China stepped up efforts to eradicate absolute poverty.

The inauguration followed an announcement by the central authorities earlier in the day that the yearslong poverty battle had ended in "complete victory".

A grand gathering was also held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to mark the country's poverty alleviation accomplishments and to honor model poverty fighters.

Widely seen as a symbol of China's historic transition from poverty alleviation to comprehensively promoting a national rural revitalization strategy, the administration made its debut on March 16 in an article carried in Qiushi, the Communist Party of China Central Committee's semimonthly theoretical magazine.

The article, headlined "The Grand Miracle in Humanity's Poverty Reduction History", was published under the name of the administration's Party committee.

Official data shows that the 98.99 million rural residents who were impoverished in 2012 have all escaped poverty.

Xinhua contributed to this story.