Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni left here for China on Tuesday afternoon to attend a high level poverty reduction conference.

The president will attend the Global Conference on Scaling Up Poverty Reduction in east China's economic hub Shanghai from May 26 to 27, jointly sponsored by the World Bank and the Chinese government.

This is the third time for Museveni to be in China. He visited China in 1989 and 1996, respectively.

Before his departure, Museveni told Xinhua that the two countries have "very, very good" relations.

Overcoming poverty and other problems with trade is one of Museveni's pet topics. On trade prospects between the two countries, the president said China has a big market, and he hopesthe two countries would export "more and more" to each other.

Every Chinese can drink "one cup of (Ugandan) coffee a day," hesaid.

Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and Bangladeshi Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia are also to participate in the meeting aimed at accelerating efforts to reduce poverty through assessing best practices and sharing knowledge among developing countries.

The conference has altogether attracted more than 800 participants, who will pore over the research conducted over the past nine months through near 100 cases studies, over 20 video conferences and more than 10 field visits to project sites in Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Turkey, Uganda, and Yemen, and try to identify key success factors of poverty reduction throughout those efforts.

Although development assistance over the past 50 years has helped millions of people overcome poverty, 2.8 billion people, more than half the population in developing countries, still live on less than two US dollars a day.

Source: Xinhua