The Municipal People’s Committee of Hanoi has recently decided to raise the local poverty standard by 50% for the 2011-2015 period.
Under the new standard, households are considered poor if family members have per-capital income under VND 750,000 (US $39) in urban areas and under VND 550,000 (US $28) in rural areas, up 50% in compared with the standard set up for 2009-2013 period.
Meanwhile, the levels of US $39-52 and US $28-39 belong to groups of close-to-poor households in urban and rural areas, respectively.
Hanoi reduced a lot of poor households in the past thanks to its active poverty reduction program. Under the new poor standard, the capital still have 148,148 poor households or 9.6% of its total population.
The Municipal People’s Committee Deputy Chairman Phi Thai Binh said that the city is striving to reduce the poverty rate to less than 2% by 2015.