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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