Hanoi (VNA) – The household poverty rate is set toreduce further this year, but the wealth gap is still widening, according tothe Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA).

MoLISA Deputy Minister Le Quan said at a meetingof the central steering committee for national target programmes in Hanoi onJuly 25 that the household poverty rate is expected to decline to 4.5 percentin 2019, meeting the target set by the National Assembly. 

However, poverty elimination remainsunsustainable because aside from poverty relapse, the rate of new poorhouseholds is high, 17.8 percent of the households escaping from poverty in2018.

Meanwhile, the wealth gap hasn’t been shrunk whenthe income gap between the richest and poorest widened from 9.7 times in 2014to 10 times in 2018.

Quan attributed the problem partly to manyhouseholds’ location in areas with complex natural conditions, which hashampered the effective implementation of solutions to eradicating povertythrough sustainable livelihoods. Additionally, their accessibility to publicservices and the market remains modest.

Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue said it isworrying that there are 18 new poor households every 100 which already escapedfrom poverty. The number of communes, hamlets and villages emerging from theparticularly disadvantaged status is very low and unlikely to meet the targetset for 2019-2020 as only 44 of those 292 communes have been relieved frompoverty.

The target of lifting all households ofrevolution contributors out of deprivation in 2019 is also a challenge now, hesaid, adding that only about 20 of the 53 provinces with poor households beingrevolution contributors’ are likely to solve this issue thoroughly this year.

Without good solutions, this target will remainunachievable even in 2020, but the Government, the National Assembly and thesteering committee are determined in addressing this issue, he noted. -VNA