Growth in China, India reducing extreme poverty (AP) Updated: 2006-08-29 09:44
BUSAN, South Korea - Economic growth in China and India has dramatically
reduced the number of people in Asia subsisting below the poverty level of US$1
a day, but the total remains in the hundreds of millions, the International
Labor Organization said Tuesday.
Since 1990 about 250 million people have risen above that benchmark, said the
report, titled "Labor and Social Trends in Asia and the Pacific 2006: Progress
toward Decent Work."
Still, over 600 million Asians live below that level, or "more than
two-thirds of the world's poor," the report said. "If the poverty line is raised
to US$2 a day, Asia has about 1.9 billion poor people," or more than
three-fourths of the world total, it said.
"The two main engines behind the rise of Asia are China and India," the
report said. "They have emerged as global economic powerhouses, shifting the
growth pole from the West to the East."
The report comes as the U.N. agency covering work and
workplace issues prepared to open a four-day meeting later Tuesday in the South
Korean port city of Busan.
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