They said at a seminar in Hanoi on Dec. 28 that Vietnam should select a model that combines growth with poverty reduction to create the right conditions for poor people to improve their capabilities and increase their chances to access economic sources.

On the other hand, the nation needs to attach poverty reduction targets to the criteria for construction of new urban areas, social welfare policies and vocational training programmes for rural labourers.

The Deputy Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, Nguyen Trong Dam, confirmed that the Vietnamese Government always incorporates poverty reduction into its national economic development plans. Vietnam is considered a role model in the field, he added.

The number of poor households shrank from 58 percent in 1993 to 14 percent in 2008 after 10 years of implementing the country’s national programe on poverty reduction.