JAKARTA, June 4 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia has set target to reduce poverty rate to below 10 percent this year, lower than 10.12 percent recorded in September last year as efforts to address poverty issue were underway, a minister said here on Monday.
Speaking in a hearing session with lawmakers in the parliament, Development Planning Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said that as of September last year some 26.58 million people were still living under poverty line, of which 9.78 million were in very poor condition.
Apart from that, the minister added that 69 million others were living in a situation prone to slipping into poverty.
"We are now prioritizing efforts to save those 9.78 million ones in dire poverty as well as taking precautions to prevent those 69 million ones from slipped into poverty line," the minister said.
Through coordinated efforts with related ministries and agencies, the nation's poverty rate is expected to decrease between 8.5 percent and 9 percent next year, he added.
Among the efforts to reduce poverty rate, the government would strictly control prices of staple food consumed by poor people in the identified areas.
"The efforts to strictly control the prices of meat, sugar and eggs would be focused in rural areas which have higher risk from plunged deeper in poverty," the minister said.