The capital city of Hanoi on October 7 launched a month for the poor and storm victims. The annual programme, coorganised by the Hanoi Fatherland Front andthe Hanoi Radio Television, forms part of the city’s efforts to reducepoverty while promoting the spirit of mutual help. Accordingto Dao Van Binh, Chairman of the Hanoi Fatherland Front, the citystrives to cut the rate of poor households from 1.5 to 1.8 percentannually and bring the percentage of those to below 2 percent by 2015.   Over the past 13 years, the capital city has helped build andrepair more than 30,000 houses. In 2012 alone, the “For the poor” fundcollected nearly 40 billion VND. However, more efforts areneeded as Hanoi still has over 59.300 poor households and more than42.000 families living near the poverty line, making up 3.6 percent and2.5 percent of its population, Binh stressed. On this occasion, some 80 billion VND (3.76 million USD) were collected in support of the poor and storm victims. Earlier, on October 2, the capital city donated 7 billion VND to victims of natural disasters in other provinces. Vietnam had over 2.1 million poor households and over 1.4 millionfamilies living near the poverty line in 2012, accounting for 9.64percent and 6.57 percent of the population, respectively. The national poverty rate last year was reduced by 2.12 percent,exceeding the target of 2 percent set by the National Assembly. Inparticular, the rate sharply fell in poor districts by 7.02 percentwhile the NA target was just 4 percent.-VNA