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Insurance coverage and health benefits should be expanded to tackle poverty, said President Xi Jinping during an inspection tour to Jinzhai county, Anhui province, on Sunday.

President Xi Jinping shakes hand with a villager at Dawan village in Jinzhai county, East China's Anhui province, April 24, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

Jinzhai county, once an important Red Army revolutionary base, is among the country's most impoverished counties.

During his visit, Xi laid a wreath at the monument of revolutionary martyrs in Jinzhai, visited a Red Army memorial hall and a museum honoring revolutionaries.

Xi also visited five homes in Dawan village in Jinzhai and listened to ideas and suggestions of the villagers on poverty-alleviation activities such as photovoltaic power generation, tea planting and developing the fish breeding and poultry sectors.

He also sought their views on migration and resettlement.

Xi met Wang Nengbao, 68, and learnt that Wang's wife, who suffers from hypertension, has to spend about 3,000 yuan on medicines.

Xi said disease and disability often cause poverty, therefore, poverty-alleviation mechanisms should be further improved to cover medical expenses and greater support should be given to poor households in terms of health insurance and the new rural cooperative medical system.

Dawan village is not easy to access and to get there Xi had to take one-and-a-half–hour flight from Beijing to Hefei and then another 90 minutes by car before he arrived in Jinzhai county. It took another hour to get to the village.

The effort was worth it, Xi told the villagers, as he wanted to know firsthand the real picture of poverty-relief work in rural areas, especially at the revolutionary bases.

He also highlighted the importance of taking sustainable measures to relieve poverty and setting up long-term poverty-alleviation mechanisms.

Efforts should also be continued in creating files, records and data to help poor households emerge from impoverished circumstances, Xi said.