In the report “Characteristics of the Vietnamese Rural Economy: Results from Surveying Rural Households 2010 in 12 provinces across the country,” the organizer said the proportion of poor households has fallen to 16% in 2010 compared to 20% in 2008 and 23% in 2006.

The survey was launched by the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) and the Embassy of Denmark, polling 2,200 households in 12 provinces from 2006 to 2010.

Vu Xuan Nguyet Hong, vice president of the CIEM, said the poverty downtrend was seen in most of the researched provinces, excluding Dien Bien, Khanh Hoa and Long An where the poverty rate in 2010 was higher than that in 2006.

In 2010, the poverty rate in Phu Tho Province was the lowest at 9% while that in Dien Bien Province was the highest at 32%. The proportions in other provinces such as Lai Chau (29%), Lao Cai (24%) and Khanh Hoa (24%) remained high .

However, it is noteworthy that CIEM applied the old poverty criteria approved by the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs rather than the new o­nes, which set higher standards.

Of the old creiteria, households with per capita income per month in rural areas at less than VND200,000 are considered poor people. Under these criteria, the poverty rate in Vietnam fell to below 10% in 2010, meaning that the rate in the above provinces was higher than the country’s average rate.

In another related survey o­n a larger scale, with the participation of 69,360 households, the General Statistics Office reported that the poverty rate in the country in 2010 was 14.2%, with the rate in urban areas at 6.9% and that in rural areas at 17.4% under the new standard issued by the Government in the 2011 – 2015 period.