Central Kalimantan slashes poverty rate

PALANGKA RAYA, C. Kalimantan: Central Kalimantan has had the third most successful antipoverty campaign after Bali and Jakarta.

Governor Warsito Rasman said yesterday the province's number of families in poverty had fallen from 321,600 in 1993 to 189,400 last year. Therefore, the percentage of poor people among the province's population of 1.63 million in 1995 had fallen from 20.85 percent to 11.21 percent.

The province's income per capita had increased from Rp 2.6 million to Rp 3 million in the last year, he said, adding that the province was eliminating poverty by improving agricultural production and other means. (swe)