Provinces and cities across Vietnam reported 676,500 families with more than 2.9 million people suffering from hunger this year, the government’s General Statistics Office (GSO) said Thursday. The number of hungry households and people dropped 29.4% and 26.2% from a year earlier respectively, the office added. The Vietnamese government granted 43,000 tons of food and handouts of VND65.2 billion ($3.5 million) to the sufferers this year. Vietnam cut the number of poor households to 12.3% in 2009, down from 13.4% in 2008.
