REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, KUPANG -- East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) has been focused in the past two years on development of infrastructure especially in frontier areas of Timor bordering with East Timor.

Land, sea and air transport facilities and irrigation facilities are being built or planned to be built, Governor Frans Lebu Raya said.

"The infrastructure agenda is wide in coverage including construction and maintenance," the governor said in a speech commemorating the 70th anniversary of the national day of August 17 here on Monday.

He said in 2015, a number of dams would be built in the province starting with the Raknamo dam in the regency of Kupang.

President Joko Widodo has inaugurated the ground breaking ceremony to mark the start of the construction of the Raknamo dam.

According to a decision of the transport minister in 2013, NTT would have four additional pioneer ships and a new harbor would be built in Maumere , Flores, to help boost economic development in the region, the governor said.

In addition a number of larger ships would serve transport between the many small islands in the province, he said.

He said the province succeeded in reducing its ratio of poor people from 19.82 percent in March 2014 to 19.8 percent or 991,880 people in September in the same year.

He attributed the success to acceleration of massive efforts to cope with poverty in the province especially in rural areas.

He said the number of people categorized as poor was reduced from 894,330 in March to 886,180 in September, 2014 in rural areas, rose from 100,340 to 105,700 in urban areas with total population at 4.8 million.

"That means the ratio in rural areas narrowed from 22.15 percent in March to 21.78 percent in September 2014," he said, adding but the ratio widened in urban areas from 10.23 percent to 10.68 percent.

In the March-September period, the poverty line was raised 0.97 percent with people having per capita income of Rp265,955 or less categorized as poor in March . The level of income per capita was raised to Rp268,536 in September.

In NTT, food commodities are greater factors in determining poverty line than non food commodities like house, clothe, education and health, the governor said.

He said NTT economy grew 3.67 percent in the third quarter from the previous three month period or quarter to quarter.

He said the increase in the number of people living below the poverty line in urban areas in NTT could be caused by the higher increase in the poverty line set for urban areas.

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