Indonesia - Indonesia allocates 10 bln USD for poverty eradication program in 2012

JAKARTA, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- An Indonesian senior minister said on Tuesday that the country would allocate a total of 99 trillion rupiah (about 10 billion US dollars) in 2012 to help eradicate the country's poverty.

The allocation consisted of health insurance for the poor and banks' loans to help finance for poor people intending to start their businesses, Coordinating Minister for the Economy Hatta Radjasa said.

According to the minister, the funds were jointly provided by state-run firms, neighborhood stewardship and partnership program (PKBL), state and private sector's budgets.

Hatta said that assistance programs for the poor were divided in several groups that comprised of among others health insurance program, school tuition assistance (BOS) and direct cash giveaway (BLT).

"Funds allocated for those programs amounted 69 trillion rupiah this year," Hatta said here.

Besides that, government also provides assistance to empower the poor through National People Empowerment Program (PNPM) and particular bank loans for the poor (KUR). At least 30 trillion rupiah has been allocated to finance those programs, the minister said.

"The KUR in 2011 has reached 26 trillion rupiah from the initial estimation set at 11 trillion rupiah. So we raise the target up to 30 trillion rupiah this year," the minister added.

According to the data released by the national statistic agency of BPS, people categorized in very poor condition accounted for 4. 17 percent, or 10,098 families from the country's 240 million population as of September last year.

While people categorized in hardly poor condition stood at 27, 824 families, or 11.5 percent from the population in that period.

According to BPS Social Resilience Director Hamonangan Ritonga, most of those poor people were living in remote and isolated areas and have limited capability to elevate their life level. Government faces access problems in carrying out efforts to eradicate poverty in the country.

Editor: Luo Yuan

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