Vietnam to Spend VND42.8T for Poverty Reduction Program

The Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) has proposed the budget for Poverty Reduction Program for 2016-2020 period to be VND42.8 trillion ($2 billion), state media reported on June 5. Of the total figure, VND29.93 trillion would be sourced from investments, VND12.87 trillion raised from businesses, and the rest will be sourced from the central government budget. The MoLISA aims to have a poverty rate of fewer than 5% by the end of this year but several regions still have the rate of over 50%, especially in remote and mountainous areas. The new goals of the Poverty Reduction Program are to accelerate poverty reduction, limit poverty relapse rate, create opportunities for poor people to access basic social services, and reduce the poverty rate by 1 percentage point to 1.5 percentage points each year in the period between 2016 and 2020. Deputy Prime Minister Vu Van Ninh, who chaired the meeting, asked the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and the Ministry of Planning and Investment to allocate resources to fund the program as much as possible and avoid cutting fund while cooperating with the National Target Program. Vietnam cut its poverty rate to 5.8% by end 2014, from 7.8% in 2013. the country has around 5.2 million poor people or 5.7% of the country’s total population. The Southeast Asian country spent an estimated VND864 trillion ($41.14 billion) on fighting against poverty during 2005-2012. The programs over the years benefit 531,000 poor households, reducing the poverty rate to 7.8% in 2013 from 22% in 2005. (Vneconomy, An Ninh Thu Do June 6 p7)