US Donation Aims to Help Poor Chinese Women Prosper

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, November 20, 2002

US Donation Aims to Help Poor Chinese Women Prosper

A donation of 1.3 million US dollars was given to the Funding the Poor Cooperative (FPC) under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing Tuesday.

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A donation of 1.3 million US dollars was given to the Funding the Poor Cooperative (FPC) under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing Tuesday.

The money aims to help impoverished Chinese women improve their lives, according to the donor, American Citi group, an American-based global financial institution.

Professor Du Xiaoshan, who heads the FPC's poverty-relief project, said the money would be used to make small loans to the women, whose family assets were below 10,000 yuan (US$ 1209) or annual income less than 1000 yuan (US$121).

The money would give a woman the chance to run a small business to help her family rise above poverty and achieve economic independence, Du said.

Small loans, or micro-credit, is one of the poverty reduction measures advocated by the United Nations. It proved quite successful when first tried in Bangladesh 20 years ago.

Du said the FPC had granted small loans totaling 68 million yuan (US$ 8.22 million) to over 15,000 poor farmers, most of whom had entirely shaken off poverty and repaid the debts.

Richard Stanley, Citigroup China's Country Corporate officer, said he believed the small loans system was really the way to helpthose Chinese women prosper.

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