"Food prices make up a large proportion of the poor people`s consumption," Darmin Nasution said.Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Stable commodity prices have reduced the number of Indonesians living in poverty by 0.27 percent, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Darmin Nasution said.
"Food prices make up a large proportion of the poor peoples consumption," he said here Monday.
The decline in the poverty rate showed that the stable prices of commodities, particularly those much needed by the poor have been evenly distributed, he said.
The stable commodity prices have increased the poor peoples consumption, so that they could get over of the poverty line, he said.
Likewise, the poverty line used by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) also rose 2.78 percent to Rp354,386 per capita, from Rp344,809 per capita in September 2015, he added.
"The decline in the poverty rate cannot directly be correlated to the economic growth rate in the first quarter of 2016. The decline has to do with the number of people living in poverty, while the economic growth is related to increasing economic activities and services," he said.
The BPS announced Monday that the countrys poverty rate fell 0.26 percent to 28.01 million, or 10.86 percent of the total population, as of March 2016, from 28.51 million or 11.13 percent of the total population, as of September 2015.
The agency attributed the drop in prices of basic necessities to the decline in the poverty rate.
The open unemployment rate also fell to 5.5 percent as of February 2016, from 6.18 percent as of August 2015.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
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