RI'S POVERTY RATE IN 2008, 2009 DOWN : WORLD BANK

Jakarta, Dec 10 (ANTARA) - The World Bank predicts that the poverty rate in Indonesia in 2008 and 2009 will continue to decline although the country's economic growth will experience a steep fall.
World Bank's chief economist in Indonesia William E Wallace said here on Wednesday the World Bank predicted Indonesia's poverty rate would drop 15.4 percent or about 33.8 million if the country's population is 220 million and economic growth reached 6.1 percent) in 2008.
The poverty rate would be 1.2 percent lower than in 2007 when the figure was 16.6 percent, he said.
In 2009, the poverty rate would drop further to 13.8 percent if the country's economic growth reached 4.4 percent. But if the worst scenario of 4.1 economic growth is taken into account, the poverty rate would be 13.9 percent of the population, Wallace said.
He said that the economic crisis which was expected to affect the country in 2009 would hamper welfare improvement efforts so that about 1.6 million people who should have been lifted from below the poverty line would still remain poor.
This means, he said, that if Indonesia's economic growth could reach 6.0 percent in 2009, the poverty rate would be 13.1 percent.