No.

use XML::Simple;

my $data = XMLin( '<string>Everyone knows that 1 &lt; 2</string>');
print $data; # ==> Everyone knows that 1 < 2
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Your code did not unescape the string. And before you attempt to add that, keep in mind that there might have been <string><![CDATA[Everyone knows that 1 < 2]]></string>. Or the encoding specified by the <?xml ...?> might have been different and there might have been some accentuated characters that need to be converted. Or. Or. Or. If you do know your files will never contain anything like that, go ahead. But don't say your script processes XML then, because it doesn't.