From July 21 to 26, 2024, Mr. Liu Junwen, Director General of the International Poverty Reduction Centre in China (IPRCC), led a delegation to Malaysia to carry out poverty reduction exchange and cooperation.

During the visit, Director General Liu Junwen and his entourage held talks and exchanges with the Implementation Coordination Unit of the Prime Minister’s Department of Malaysia, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, and the Federal Territories Department. The working group investigated the development of the chili pepper industry in the vicinity of Putrajaya, conducted field research on a series of social welfare projects such as housing resettlement and skills training in Kuala Lumpur, and investigated land development projects and the development of fishing villages and fishery in Kuantan City, Pahang, and responded to the concerns of the Malaysian side. With the strong support of the Implementation Coordination Unit of the Prime Minister’s Department of Malaysia and the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Malaysia, the working group successfully completed the exchange visit task. During the visit, Chan Ming Kai, Political Secretary to the Prime Minister of Malaysia, attended relevant meetings and accompanied the working group to conduct site visits.

As a member of the research team, Professor Zhang Qi, Dean of the China Institute of Poverty Reduction at Beijing Normal University, and his entourage participated in the site visit and went to Kampung Padang Menora of Penang to investigate the development of local village and the implementation of poverty alleviation projects.

Through exchanges and research, it is learnt that Malaysia government attaches great importance to poverty reduction. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has put forward the governance concept of Malaysia Madani, which aims to improve the living standards of the people and poverty reduction is one of the important tasks. Malaysia has three poverty lines, one is hardcore poverty, which refers to households with a monthly income of less than RM1,198; The second is absolute poverty, which refers to households with a monthly income of less than RM2,589; The third is relative poverty threshold, which refers to 50% of the median household income of all households in Malaysia. Since 2023, the current-term government has implemented a series of poverty reduction projects focusing on increasing people’s income, improving the welfare of poor and low-income families, and has made positive progress in various aspects of poverty reduction work. The current Government of Malaysia has committed to reducing the hardcore Poverty rate from 0.2% to 0 by 2025.

Relevant officials from the Research Division and Cooperation Division accompanied visit.