LALITPUR: Minister for Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation, Padma Kumari Aryal, has vowed to bring down poverty to zero by 2021.

Speaking at the 11th annual meeting of cooperatives based in the Asia Pacific, she pledged to work more to ensure professionalism in the cooperative sector so as to realize the government’s campaign for ‘Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali’.

Minister Aryal insisted on the need for equal investment, cooperation and mutual assistance among the cooperatives, government and the private sector to ensure Nepali’s per capita income of US$12,100 in the future.

According to her, the government has a plan of creating 17 thousand job opportunities annually by ensuring a 5.4 percent investment from the cooperative sector in the total national investment during the 15th Plan.