HCM City sets new poverty standards for 2021-2025 period

HCM City (VNS/VNA) - Ho Chi Minh City's Steering Board for Sustainable Poverty Reduction  has submitted its new multi-dimensional poverty standards for the 2021-2025 period to the municipal People's Committee.

The poverty threshold for the 2021-2025 will be less than 36 million VND (1,553 USD) in annual income per capita, compared to the current threshold of 28 million VND (1,207 USD) per capita, according to Le Minh Tan, Director of the city’s Department of Labour, Invalids, and Social Affairs and head of the board.

The multi-dimensional measures of poverty will include five dimensions: annual income, health, education, employment, and decent living conditions. There will be 10 indicators in the five dimensions of poverty.

The current five dimensions of poverty include education, health, employment and social insurance, living conditions, and information access with 11 indicators.

The city began using multi-dimensional poverty measures in 2016 in an aim to achieve sustainable poverty reduction and access to basic social services by the poor.  

Tan said that changes in the poverty dimensional measures would help define the rights of the poor who need assistance from the city. It will also help assess the influence of the city’s policies on beneficiaries.

Households with three deprivation indicators will be classified under multi-dimensional measures.

In the dimension based on income, households would have income of 36 million VND per capita each year or less than 36 million VND. The proportion of dependent members in these households would account for 50 percent.

In the dimension of poverty based on decent living conditions, the housing area of each member in one household would be less than 6 square metres if they live in the city’s inner districts and 10 square metres in the city’s outlying districts.

With the new multi-dimensional poverty standards, the city expects to have 52,000 poor households, accounting for 2.4 percent of the city’s total population and 38,000 households near the poverty threshold with income from 36 million VND to 46 million VND per capita each year.

The city currently has 3,700 poor households, accounting for 0.13 percent of the city’s total population and 15,000 households near the poverty line.

Relevant ministries and agencies are developing the national multi-dimensional poverty standards for the 2021-25 period to submit to the Prime Minister for approval.

The poverty rate nationwide is expected to decrease to less than 3 percent by the end of this year from 3.75 percent in 2019.

More than 10 trillion VND from the State budget this year was earmarked for the National Target Programme on Sustainable Poverty Reduction.

As of June 30, loans from the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies worth more than 18.6 trillion VND have been provided to 423,000 poor and near-poor households in the country./.