Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs of Columbia University, who is Special Advisor to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals and Director of the UN Millennium Project, regards China as a successful paradigm for the global development strategy.

Professor Sachs made the comment in an interview with People's Daily in Beijing last week.

He believes China can make significant contribution and play a key role in materializing the goal of reducing by half the proportion of people in extreme poverty and hunger by 2015, which is one of the commitments of the UN Millennium Project.

He praised China for its most massive ever poverty eradication in the world's history, its fast growing economy, and its prosperity in the past 20-plus years.

He recognized there was still poverty and rich-poor gap in China. However, he does not think it indicates that the poor are getting poorer, instead the truth is the poor do not catch up with the rich on the way of making their fortunes.

He is fully confident in China's sustained momentum in poverty alleviation as long as the country keeps its commitment to the balanced development, pursues further its strategy of developing its western region, and invests more in agriculture and basic education.

Professor Sachs gave positive comments on China's Family Planning policy, attributing China's remarkable achievements in development at least partly to its lower birth rate.

He suggested African countries voluntarily reduce the birth rate, give women the access to both birth control services and job opportunities, which he believed would help the efforts made by the continent on the economic development and poverty reduction.

He disclosed that he aggressively promoted the experience on the family planning in his report, which was not included in the Millennium Development Goals.

By People's Daily Online