Vietnam Hanoi Hosts Int’l Conference on Low Incomer Support

Policymakers and representatives of industries, private businesses, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and donors from Vietnam, China, Laos and Thailand participated in a conference in Hanoi May 25 to seek measures to support low-income earners. Addressing the event, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan emphasized that innovation and creativity play an important part in generating jobs for all people in every country. Since began renewal process in 1986, Vietnam has gained remarkable achievements in hunger eradication and poverty reduction, which is spoken highly by the international community, he attributed. The country’s poverty rate fell to 9.45% in 2010 from 58% in 1993, Nhan said, adding that Vietnam was officially regarded as a middle-income country last year. At present, 70% of Vietnam’s population lives in rural areas, with income mainly from agriculture production. Thus, it is necessary to share experiences and solutions on renewal and creativity in assistance of low-income earners with the aim to improve the living standards of low incomers in Vietnam, as well as those in Southeast Asian and Asia-Pacific regions. The partisans also introduced typical cases of developing comprehensive innovation technology in various fields, including agriculture, low-cost healthcare, green technology and information technology.  Vietnam targets to increase average income of poor families to 3.5 times and cut the poverty rate to 2% per annum by 2020, as part of the government’s recent resolution on sustainable poverty reduction from 2011 through 2020. The country targets to cut the poverty rate to between 4% and 5% by 2020 from the current rate of 9.45%, under the new poverty line took effect from Jan 1, 2011, under which Vietnam now has around 3.3 million poor families and 1.5 million near-poor ones. In 2010, Vietnam will spend nearly VND1.81 trillion ($87.44 million) on a sustainable poverty reduction program this year. (vietnamplus.vn May 25, Phap Luat TP.HCM May 27 p2)