HCM City Aims to Cut Poverty Rate to 7.2% This Year

Ho Chi Minh City targets to reduce the rate of poor families to 7.2% this year, down from 7.25% in 2009, the city’s Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs said at a conference early this week. In 2010, the department expects to raise VND230 billion ($12.4 million) for the city’s hunger elimination and poverty reduction fund to provide soft loans to 50,000 poor households. The department aims to send 100 poor laborers to abroad, grant 700,000 health insurance policies to poor families and build 2,900 houses for the poor. In 2009, the fund lent VND187.5 billion to 41,000 poor households to help them start doing businesses. The department also issued 450,000 health insurance policies to 106,000 poor families and helped build 1,330 houses for the poor.  Under the city’s poverty standard, a household is considered poor if it earns VND12 mllion per person per year.