On December 1, 2021, the Seminar on Rural Development and Poverty Reduction for Lao PDR, sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China and hosted by the International Poverty Reduction Center in China (IPRCC), was held in Beijing. Dr. Liu Junwen, Director General of IPRCC, attended the opening ceremony and delivered a speech. Ms. SOULATPHONE BOUNMAPHETH, Expert of the Lao Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Lao PDR made a speech on behalf of all the participants.

In his speech, Director General Dr. Liu Junwen pointed out that China and Laos are good neighbors, good friends, good comrades, good partners and also a community of common destiny. Since the two countries established the diplomatic relations 60 years ago, the traditional friendly relations have become increasingly rich and mellow. The theme of this seminar is "rural development and poverty alleviation", which is very consistent with the reality of the current social development of the two countries. In this seminar, we will invite Chinese experts and scholars to introduce China's rural development and poverty alleviation strategies and practices, and comprehensively display China's targeted poverty alleviation strategy, industrial poverty alleviation policy, health poverty alleviation policy, ecological poverty alleviation policy, education poverty alleviation policy, employment poverty alleviation policy, rural science and technology poverty alleviation policy, rural financial poverty alleviation policy, etc. We hope to discuss Laos' poverty reduction policy together, the relationship between poverty reduction situation and economic development stage, form a country report and enrich the global poverty reduction case base. 

The seminar lasts 10 days. 70 participants from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Lao PDR, Agricultural Products Technology Promotion and Processing Bureau, Poverty Alleviation Fund and local provincial agricultural departments participated in the seminar.