Central China's Hunan province announced at a news conference that it plans to invest 300 million yuan ($48.98 million) for poverty alleviation projects this year, on the eve of China Poverty Alleviation Day.

Furthermore, a credit capital supply of 1.39 billion yuan will be provided for the 62 projects, expecting to help more than 200,000 people out of poverty.

After several decades of poverty support and development, great changes have taken place in poverty-stricken areas of Hunan. Some infrastructures like water, electricity and transportation have been greatly improved. However, poverty problems are still serious because of various limiting factors, said Wang Zhiqun, director of Hunan Poverty Alleviation Office.

Under the national poverty alleviation standard, Hunan had 6.4 million impoverished people in 2013, which made up 11.2 percent of the total rural population in the province. They are mainly in Wuling Mountain region and Luoxiao Mountain region.

At present, 3,145 villages have problems in transportation and 6,745 villages fail to complete their rural power network upgrades. About 4.3 million people still have difficulty in finding drinking water and 1.04 million dangerous buildings need reconstruction. The annual per capita net income of farmers in the 51 poverty-stricken counties is only 5,137 yuan ($838.90).

The poverty-alleviation projects aim in each project to help over 1,000 people out of poverty, and assist them with an increase of more than 1,000 yuan in their annual per capita income. 

The State Council recently approved a China Poverty Alleviation Day, to be held each year on Oct 17.