Vietnam Biggest City Aims to Reduce Poverty Rate to 5.4% in 2011

Vietnam’s southern economic hub of Ho Chi Minh City targets to help around 20,000 poor households to escape poverty and cut its poverty rate to 5.4% this year from 5.7% last year, the municipal Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs said. To reach the goal, the most populous city will continue its soft loan programs and financial support policies, including tuition exemption and provision of scholarships and health insurance cards for the poor. HCM City will improve vocational consulting and training, and generate jobs for poor people, as well as provide job training for 1,200 laborers, the department said, elaborating that at least 10,000 new jobs will be created in 2011, including 100 overseas ones. The city will also pour big investment into building and upgrading charity houses for the poor. By end-2010, the southern metropolis reported 105,326 poor households with an annual income below VND12 million ($615) per capita, compared to 130,917 of the beginning of the year. Of the total poor families, nearly 30,000 households have an annual income less than VND8 million. In 2010, the city provided a total of nearly VND3 trillion ($153.85 million) in loans to poor families, and more than 1,900 laborers received vocational training, an increase of more than 1,000 over 2009. (Vietnam News Jan 17 p5)