Authorities in Vietnam’s capital city of Hanoi will provide VND330-billion soft loans to 22,000 poor families from now to the end of 2012, said the municipal People’s Committee. According to the committee, in the first seven months of the year, loans worth VND454 billion were provided to 30,000 poor families, including VND328 billion for production purposes, VND100 billion for job creation, and VND23 billion for house repairing. Poor families had used the loans effectively to help increase their income, improve their living conditions, create jobs, and escape poverty. So far, the city’s total outstanding loans in credit programs for poor households have reached VND1.39 trillion, benefiting 100,000 families, the committee added. To help the poor sustainably reduce poverty, Hanoi provided soft loans worth VND200 billion to 35,000 needy families last year. With 114,636 poor households or 9.6% of its total population, Hanoi will need VND100 trillion yearly to cut the poverty rate by 1.4%-1.8% a year, said Dang Viet Quan, chairman of the Hanoi Fatherland Front. (Lao Dong – Labor Aug 20)
