BEIJING, April 16 (Xinhua) -- China's rural policy bank has pledged to increase loans to facilitate poverty relief work as the government steps up efforts to win the crucial battle against poverty.

The Agricultural Development Bank of China has required its provincial branches in 22 regions to take responsibility for poverty reduction work, as China aims to lift all the impoverished out of poverty by 2020.

The net loans for targeted poverty reduction should account for no less than 50 percent of total loans this year, according to Qian Wenhui, head of the policy bank.

In the 2016-2017 period, the lender has given out loans of 1 trillion yuan (about 159 billion U.S. dollars) for poverty reduction, according to Qian.

China has lifted more than 60 million people out of poverty in the past five years, with the poverty rate dropping from 10.2 percent to less than 4 percent.

There were around 30 million Chinese still living below the national poverty line at the end of last year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.