Madam Chair,

The Chinese delegation congratulates you on your election to the chairmanship of the Third Committee of the 71st session of the General Assembly and assures you of our full support and copperation. The Chinese delegation notes the report of the Secretary-General submitted under this agenda item, and associates itself with the statement by Thailand on behalf of G77 and China.

There are hundreds of millions of people in the world living in extreme poverty. Developing countries, especially the LDCs, are still confronted with formidable challenges in social development. The sluggish recovery of the world economy, frequent outbreak of regional conflicts and the spread of the terrorist threat all further complicate social development efforts. The international community needs to give more prominence to social development and focus on efforts in the following aspects:

First, put priority on poverty eradication. Poverty eradication is one of the three core issues in social development adopted at the World Summit for Social Development and the first of the 17 goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Countries should prioritize poverty eradication as a policy focus, and make stronger commitment and greater efforts to ensure the realization of this goal on or even ahead of schedule.

Second, accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Social development is an important component of the 2030 Agenda. To advance the 2030 Agenda, it is critical to take effective actions. Countries need, based on their specific conditions and levels of development, to make real progress quickly while taking into consideration their immediate and long-term goals, as well as their own priorities.

Third, foster the awareness of a community of shared future for mankind and work to address the development imbalance between the North and the South. The developed countries should fully honor their ODA commitment and assist the developing countries in achieving social development, in particular, in improving their overall level of education and enhancing their response to public health challenges. The developing countries also need to strengthen South-South Cooperation in order to achieve solidarity and self-reliance.

Fourth, enhance the inclusiveness of social development. Building an inclusive society is not only the moral obligation of national governments, but also the sine qua non for sustainable development. We need to heighten the inclusiveness of social development and increase the participation of vulnerable groups in education, health and employment so that they could also share the fruits of development.

Fifth, design proper mechanism and agenda to ensure that social development get full attention that it deserves. The UN needs to increase its input and play a greater role in helping countries, especially the developing countries, to achieve social development. The Commission for Social Development needs to adhere to its mandate from the Copenhagen Summit and work toward the early realization of SDGs in social development areas such as poverty eradication, education, health and employment.

Madam Chair,

China is the most populous developing country in the world. The Chinese Government was among the first to attain the MDGs and has achieved over the past 15 years remarkable results in the areas of poverty reduction, health care and education, lifting more than 400 million people out of poverty. China is going all-out to implement the 2030 Agenda and has incorporated the various targets of the Agenda in its overall planning for national development. Our vision of innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development is in conformity with the overall direction and requirements of the 2030 Agenda. We have reason to hope that through hard work, we can lift by 2020 all the Chinese people living under the current poverty line out of poverty, reach the targets in the areas of eradication of poverty and hunger, maternal and child healthcare, and housing ahead of schedule, and basically achieve by 2030 the relevant goals in priority areas of agriculture, health, education and economic growth.

With the facilitation of China as the current president of G20, for the first time, the G20 Hangzhou Summit held in September placed development at the core of the global macro-economic policy framework and adopted an Action Plan on the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, thus taking the lead in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

China feels deeply for the aspirations of the developing countries to break away from poverty and achieve development and has been rendering support and help to their endeavors. As of the end of 2015, China has contributed 400 billion RMB Yuan to 166 countries and international and regional organizations, and provided all types of training for 12 million people from developing countries.

China will continue to strengthen cooperation with other developing countries and provide assistance to Africa and the LDCs to the best of our capability with a view to achieving common development and prosperity.

Thank you, Madam Chair.