ISLAMABAD, May 29 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan government spent over 1 trillion Rupees (about 16.7 billion U.S. dollars) on poverty alleviation programs during the past four years, cutting poverty from 32.1 percent in 2000-01 to 25.4 percent in 2004-05, state-run news agency APP reported on Monday.

    "Rural poverty has declined from 39 percent to 31.8 percent andurban poverty from 22.7 percent to 17.1 percent," said the advisor to the Finance Ministry Ashfaque Hasan Khan.

    He said the real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at an average rate of almost 6 percent annually in the last four years as against 3.3 percent in the preceding four years.

    Due to strong domestic consumption and investment, real private sector consumption grew by 8.2 percent in 2003-04 and 16.8 percent in 2004-05.

    He said that higher consumption, feeding back into economic activity was likely to support the ongoing growth momentum, adding that it suggested the emergence of a strong middle class with buying power.

    The advisor said that unemployment had gone down from 8.3 percent in 2001-02 to 6.2 percent in the second quarter of 2005-06 and the pace of job creation had increased. Enditem