Authorities in Vietnam’s capital city of Hanoi will spend VND5 trillion ($256.41 million) from the municipal budget to support the poor and near-poor people from now up to 2015, the Dau Tu newspaper reported Dec 27. The city has announced its new poverty line for the 2011-2015 period, under which it will be VND750,000/person/month in urban area and VND550,000/person/month in rural area. A rural person, who earns VND551,000-VND750,000 per month, will be considered a near-poor one while an urban resident will be deemed near-poor if having monthly income of VND751,000-VND1 million. Under the new poverty standard, Hanoi is forecast to have 114,636 poor families this year, accounting for 9.6% of its total population, compared to 4.48% currently. Hanoi targets to cut the poverty rate to 2% by 2015. (Dau Tu –Investment Dec 27 p2)
