A rose garden in Luonan County, northwest China's Shaanxi Province. (Xinhua/Tao Ming)

BEIJING, June 28 (Xinhua) -- Around 5.81 million poor people benefited from poverty alleviation projects launched by national social organizations in China last year, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs Friday.

A total of 686 national social organizations spent about 32.3 billion yuan (about 4.7 billion U.S. dollars) on 1,536 such projects, the ministry said.

Farmers pull up purple glutinous rice seedlings at a planting base in Rongshui Miao Autonomous County, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, June 12, 2019. (Xinhua/Huang Xiaobang)

About 7,000 provincial-level social organizations also channelled nearly 20 billion yuan to poverty-relief projects last year, benefiting about 16 million people, the ministry said.

Huang Ru, deputy director of the social organization management bureau under the ministry, said there are over 830,000 social organizations in China, which are playing an increasingly important role in economic and social development.