Number of poor falls by 2.43m

The number of people defined as poor fell by 2.43 million between March 2008 and March 2009, according to a Central Statistics Agency (BPS) report released Wednesday.

This is the third yearly decline in a row. There were 2.21 million fewer poor people in 2008 and 2.13 million fewer poor people in 2007.

The number of poor people fell from 34.96 million, or 15.42 percent of the population, in March 2008, to 32.53 million in March 2009.

BPS deputy chairman for social statistics Arizal Ahnaf said most of Indonesia ’s poor live in rural areas.