Antara, Jakarta – The Papua Province Statistics Indonesia (BPS) on Monday announced that the percentage of Papuans living in poverty as of September 2022 amounted to 26.80 percent, which is a 0.24 percent increase compared to March of the same year but a 0.58 percent drop compared to the same month of 2021.

BPS Associate Statistician for Social Statistics Function Sugiyanto said the number of poor people in September 2022 amounted to 936.32 thousand, an increase of 14.20 thousand people compared to March 2022.

"However, it decreased by 8.17 thousand people compared to September 2021, so that the percentage of the urban poor population in March 2022 was 5.02 percent, up 0.27 percentage points to 5.29 percent in September 2022," he said in Jayapura, on Monday, January 16.

The percentage of poverty among the rural population in March 2022 was 35.39 percent, up 0.29 percentage points to 35.68 percent in September 2022.

"There are several factors that affect the poverty rate during the period March 2022-September 2022," he said.

He said there are three main factors that affect Papua's poverty rate. The first is the economy in the third quarter of 2022 compared to the first quarter of 2022 with a contraction of 0.76 percent (q-to-q). Second, in September 2022 the combined inflation rate for the three CPI cities in Papua was 0.31 percent.

The third factor is the combined Farmer Exchange Rate (NTP) (with fisheries) in September 2022 which was 99.08 down by 2.03 percent compared to March 2022. The fourth reason is the security threats throughout 2022 that was influential across a number of Papua regions.

Source: https://en.tempo.co/read/1680574/papua-poverty-rate-at-26-8-percent-says-statistics-indonesi