QUOTE
More than 160,000 households escape from poverty
07/06/2004 -- 17:01(GMT+7)
Ha Noi, July 6 (VNA) - According to the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs, 164,000 households across the country escaped from the poverty line in the first six months of this year.
Also under the reviewed period, a number of communes were excluded from programme 135 - the socio-economic development programme for ethnic communes in mountainous, borderline, isolated and remote areas.
Ho Chi Minh City leads the country in the fight against hunger and poverty by fulfilling all targets set for the 1991-2003 period. The city has readjusted its poverty criterion with households having annual income less than 6 million VND will be listed under the poverty line. The level is three times higher than the country's average.
The national hunger elimination and poverty reduction campaign launched in 2001 has received warm support from people in every section of society. Particularly, the Fund for the Poor has succeeded in raising donations. In the first five months of this year, almost 137 billion VND has been contributed to the fund. The money was spent on the construction of houses for 31,000 poor households.
Minister of Labour, War Invalids, and Social Affairs Nguyen Thi Hang noted that in the 2001-2003, the country mobilised 13,400 billion VND from the State and local budgets as well as from the community for hunger elimination and poverty reduction projects. She attributed the encouraging result to the Government's instruction, effective coordination and implementation of ministries, branches of activities and localities across the country.
In the Central highlands and Mekong delta provinces, local authorities allocated land and gave financial support to thousands of poor households to redeem their cultivation areas. Tens of thousands of poor households were provided with information to develop non-agriculture production and handicraft trades.
Over the past three years, 150,000 poor households were given subsidies to purchase seedlings, fertiliser and insecticides for crop and animal breeding restructuring to obtain higher production efficiency.
More than 2.7 million poor households got soft loans worth almost 8,000 billion VND for expanding production activities in the 2001-2003 period.
Through the implementation of programme 135, 4,800 infrastructure facilities were built. In addition, 776 billion VND has been poured into more than 1,000 infrastructure development projects in poor communes, which are not listed in programme 135.
Provinces and cities reserved a combined fund of 150 billion VND, which was used to cover partly or wholly school fees and textbooks for 4.5 million poor pupils and health insurance policies for 4 million poor people.
However, unpredictable weather conditions, price fluctuations and outbreaks of epidemics over the recent past left adverse impacts on the fight against poverty. The poverty and poverty relapse rates in some provinces such as the Mekong delta province of Soc Trang and northern highlands province of Bac Can were more than 20 percent. On the other hand, the rate of households escaping from poverty in localities is varied with the lowest rate recorded in the Eastern Nam Bo (the south), 8.9 percent; and the highest rate in the northwestern region, almost 34 percent.
Minister Nguyen Thi Hang revealed that her ministry has been striving to achieve the goal of reducing the country's poverty rate to below 8.3 percent by the end of this year, or one year earlier than the national target of 10 percent set for the 2001-2005 period.
In order to achieve the goal in a sustainable manner, the minister added, her ministry will concentrate investment for prolonged poverty-stricken regions such as the northwestern, central highlands, and central western regions, and coastal, densely populated and new urban areas.
The ministry will improve the mechanism and policies to encourage poor households and communes to use their own efforts to combat poverty, Hang noted.
She also said that support policies on housing, cultivation land allocation, credit provision, and speciality crop development for poor regions will be further developed.
07/06/2004 -- 17:01(GMT+7)
Ha Noi, July 6 (VNA) - According to the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs, 164,000 households across the country escaped from the poverty line in the first six months of this year.
Also under the reviewed period, a number of communes were excluded from programme 135 - the socio-economic development programme for ethnic communes in mountainous, borderline, isolated and remote areas.
Ho Chi Minh City leads the country in the fight against hunger and poverty by fulfilling all targets set for the 1991-2003 period. The city has readjusted its poverty criterion with households having annual income less than 6 million VND will be listed under the poverty line. The level is three times higher than the country's average.
The national hunger elimination and poverty reduction campaign launched in 2001 has received warm support from people in every section of society. Particularly, the Fund for the Poor has succeeded in raising donations. In the first five months of this year, almost 137 billion VND has been contributed to the fund. The money was spent on the construction of houses for 31,000 poor households.
Minister of Labour, War Invalids, and Social Affairs Nguyen Thi Hang noted that in the 2001-2003, the country mobilised 13,400 billion VND from the State and local budgets as well as from the community for hunger elimination and poverty reduction projects. She attributed the encouraging result to the Government's instruction, effective coordination and implementation of ministries, branches of activities and localities across the country.
In the Central highlands and Mekong delta provinces, local authorities allocated land and gave financial support to thousands of poor households to redeem their cultivation areas. Tens of thousands of poor households were provided with information to develop non-agriculture production and handicraft trades.
Over the past three years, 150,000 poor households were given subsidies to purchase seedlings, fertiliser and insecticides for crop and animal breeding restructuring to obtain higher production efficiency.
More than 2.7 million poor households got soft loans worth almost 8,000 billion VND for expanding production activities in the 2001-2003 period.
Through the implementation of programme 135, 4,800 infrastructure facilities were built. In addition, 776 billion VND has been poured into more than 1,000 infrastructure development projects in poor communes, which are not listed in programme 135.
Provinces and cities reserved a combined fund of 150 billion VND, which was used to cover partly or wholly school fees and textbooks for 4.5 million poor pupils and health insurance policies for 4 million poor people.
However, unpredictable weather conditions, price fluctuations and outbreaks of epidemics over the recent past left adverse impacts on the fight against poverty. The poverty and poverty relapse rates in some provinces such as the Mekong delta province of Soc Trang and northern highlands province of Bac Can were more than 20 percent. On the other hand, the rate of households escaping from poverty in localities is varied with the lowest rate recorded in the Eastern Nam Bo (the south), 8.9 percent; and the highest rate in the northwestern region, almost 34 percent.
Minister Nguyen Thi Hang revealed that her ministry has been striving to achieve the goal of reducing the country's poverty rate to below 8.3 percent by the end of this year, or one year earlier than the national target of 10 percent set for the 2001-2005 period.
In order to achieve the goal in a sustainable manner, the minister added, her ministry will concentrate investment for prolonged poverty-stricken regions such as the northwestern, central highlands, and central western regions, and coastal, densely populated and new urban areas.
The ministry will improve the mechanism and policies to encourage poor households and communes to use their own efforts to combat poverty, Hang noted.
She also said that support policies on housing, cultivation land allocation, credit provision, and speciality crop development for poor regions will be further developed.
