Serving as Party chief of Ningde, which administers Shouning, from 1988 to 1990, Xi made poverty reduction a top priority during his tenure in the city. He worked in Fujian from 1985 to 2002.

He shares some of his thoughts in the book Up and Out of Poverty, which comprises 29 of Xi's speeches and articles from the city. It was published in July 1992.

"To fundamentally alter poverty and backwardness, the people there must engage in long-term, unremitting efforts with an entrepreneurial spirit of tenacity and dedication, like 'water droplets drilling through rock'," Xi wrote in one article.

In another, he said that focusing on agriculture in economically underdeveloped areas is a precondition to alleviating poverty, and this has fundamental significance for economic development in rural areas.

"We must eradicate the 'poverty' in our minds before we can eradicate it in the regions we govern, before we can help the people and the nation out of poverty and embark on the road to prosperity," Xi wrote.

Lin Hongzhang, deputy head of the municipal office for poverty reduction and development in Ningde, said Xi paved the way for the ensuing large-scale poverty alleviation efforts in the city.

"A crucial aspect of our experience was to make sustained efforts, just like 'water droplets drilling through rock'," he said. "Nobody else has seen the problem more thoroughly than him (Xi), and nobody proposed a better solution than him," he said.

Lin added that officials have been inspired by the blueprints drawn up by Xi in recent decades, which have been an important reason for the city's resounding success in reducing poverty.

Over the past 30 years, Ningde, which had a population of 2.9 million last year, has lifted over 774,900 people out of poverty. The number of those living below the poverty line in the city fell to 75 this year, and the poverty incidence rate was 0.01 percent, far below the national average of 1.7 percent.

Nationwide, the number of people living in poverty in rural areas fell from nearly 99 million by the end of 2012 to 16.6 million by the end of last year. A target has been set for all rural residents to be lifted out of poverty by next year.