Authorities of Vietnam’s capital city of Hanoi will spend VND900 billion ($42.86 million) on a sustainable poverty reduction program in the 2013-2015 period.The program will focus on building infrastructure projects for ethnic minorities, expanding the poverty reduction model as well as enhancing capacity in poverty reduction, communication and supervision.Under the program, the city aims to lower the rate of poor households to below 2% by end-2015 from 4.48% in 2010.Local authorities have built and upgraded nearly 30,000 houses for the poor over the past 12 years, according to the municipal Fatherland Front Committee. With around 81,000 poor households and 34,000 near-poor ones, Hanoi needs an estimated VND100 trillion yearly to cut the poverty rate by 1.4%-1.8% a year, Chairman of the committee Dang Viet Quan earlier said.While thousands of people remain in poverty, Vietnam has nonetheless spent much money on extravagant projects, such as the $100-million Hanoi Museum, which was built in 2010 but is not yet open to the public, and a recent project to build a $540 million National History Museum. (Vietnamplus.vn Dec 2)
