HO CHI MINH CITY, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City has set a target of having no poor households and an annual average income of at least 28 million Vietnamese dongs (1,200 U.S. dollars) per capita by the end of next year, local media reported Thursday.
To this end, local authorities need to learn more about the multi-dimensional aspects of poverty and offer solutions to reduce the poverty rate in Ho Chi Minh City, daily newspaper Vietnam News quoted Vo Thi Dung, deputy secretary of the city's party committee, as saying.
Solutions include vocational training, education, healthcare services and accommodation, all of which make up the dimensions of poverty besides income level, she said.
As of early January, Ho Chi Minh City had nearly 103,000 poor and near-poor households, accounting for roughly 4.6 percent of all households, according to the city's Sustainable Poverty Steering Board.
Households with an annual average income of less than 28 million Vietnamese dongs (below 1,200 U.S. dollars) per capita are considered poor, and of 28-36 million Vietnamese dongs (1,200-1,560 U.S. dollars) near-poor.
Since 2016, more than 60,620 poor households and 58,700 near-poor households in the city have escaped from poverty.
Vietnam lowered its poor household rate to 5.35 percent by the end of 2018, compared with the rate of 6.7 percent by the end of 2017, according to the National Office for Poverty Reduction under the Vietnamese Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs.
