South African President Thabo Mbeki on Tuesday assured his people that the new government would focus on eradicating poverty and solving other problems including crime and disease in the next five years.

"The struggle to eradicate poverty has been and will continue to be a central part of the national effort to build the new South Africa," the just-sworn-in president said in his inaugural speech.

"Endemic and widespread poverty continues to disfigure the faceof our country. It will always be impossible for us to say that wehave fully restored the dignity of all our people as long as this situation persists," he said.

Since coming into power for the first time in 1999, Mbeki has been credited with doing much to make the economy healthy. But he is also criticized by opposition parties for failing to tackle poverty and related problems.

More than 40 percent of the country's 45 million people still live under the poverty line, earning less than 530 rand (84 US dollars) a month, according to a research by the University of Stellenbosch.

"None of great social problems we have to solve is capable of resolution outside the context of the creation of jobs and the alleviation and eradication of poverty," Mbeki said. "This relates to everything, from the improvement of the health of our people, to reducing the levels of crime, raising the levels of literacy and numeracy, and opening the doors of learning and culture to all."

"We must use our human and material resources and the genius ofour people to build an economy that addresses their needs, that gives us the means to end the wretchedness that continues to define some as being less human than others," he said.

Mbeki secured his bid for the second term of office after his ruling party the African National Congress (ANC) won a landslide victory in the third all-race elections on April 14 by taking 279 of the 400 seats of the national parliament.

Mbeki's inauguration falls on the anniversary of South Africa's first democratic elections on April 27, 1994.

Led by anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, the ANC came into power to bring astonishing changes to the country with more than 70 percent of the population as blacks.

The South African government has implemented polices focusing on reconciliation, stability and development in the past decade, pushing forward social reforms to improve black people's political,economic and social status.

Now South Africa has emerged as an economic powerhouse on the African continent, with a 2.8 percent annual growth rate on average, while playing an increasingly prominent role in regional and international affairs.

But South Africa still faces huge challenges including poverty, unemployment rate as high as 42 percent, grave gap between the rich and the poor, high levels of violent crime, and HIV/AIDS that affects one in nine of the population.

At least 26 heads of state and some 60 prime ministers and envoys from African, European, Asian, American and Middle East countries were seated at the VIP arena to watch the inaugural ceremony starting from early Tuesday morning.

More than 40,000 people crowded on the lawns below the Union Buildings in front of the Presidential Palace, waving national flags and reveling.

Huge TV screens were erected to beam the scene to whom could not see. Organizers have also placed 100 big TV screens with live up-links across the country for those who cannot attend.

Source: Xinhua