China has been re-elected into the UN Economic and Social Council, one of the six principal UN organs that is tasked to coordinate the economic, social and related work of the United Nations and its specialized agencies and institutions — known as the United Nations family organizations.
China received 150 votes from the UN member States. The votes were casted in the UN General Assembly hall in the UN Headquarters Monday in New York.
China has been a member of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) since 1972 and has been re-elected continuously since then.
The country has been playing an important role for the council all these years.
“China is a model that countries should simulate to develop economy,” Hamidon Ali, Malaysian Ambassador to the UN, told Xinhua.net. He also said that China’s great success in reducing poverty made it a good example for anti-poverty efforts. “China has followed the opening-up policy. The liberalization of the market, putting in the infrastructure, and putting in the right policy mix in terms of taxation and regulating the industries…all these have helped generate the growth and that growth contributed to the poverty reduction,” Ali said.
According to recent UN reports, global poverty reduction around the world was largely due to reduction of hunger in China. From UN Development Program statistics, China has now achieved the target of halving the number of poor people from the 1990 figure of 85 million. According to the 2010 Millennium Development Goals Report published in June, the fastest growth and sharpest reductions in poverty continue to be recorded in Eastern Asia. Poverty rates in China are expected to fall to around 5 percent by 2015, according to Xinhua.net.
China’s role in the world is getting increasingly important. China gives financial and humanitarian assistance to both developing and developed countries. During the recent earthquake that devastated much of Haiti, China rushed aids worth millions of dollars to the people. China is a big lender to developed countries including the United States. Time has changed and China is moving ahead. China is the World’s second biggest economy and is expanding economic ties every day and playing an increasingly important role not only on the Asian market, but in the world economy as a whole. China is currently leading in many industries such as solar power and renewable energy, technology and many others.
Some of the other countries that were elected along side China into ECOSOC are Australia, Cameroon, Finland, Gabon, Mexico, Nicaragua, Norway, Pakistan, the Republic of Korea, Russia, Senegal, Spain and Switzerland. The UN ECOSOC consists of 54 members that serve a 3 year term.
* Ekaterina Volozova is an international reporter at M4 Media