HANOI, Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam sent 82,000 local people to work abroad, including Japan, South Korea, China's Taiwan, Malaysia and some Middle East countries in 2007, up from 78,800 in2006 and 70,600 in 2005, according to local official sources on Wednesday.

    Vietnam, creating a total of nearly 1.7 million jobs this year, has set next year's targets of creating 1.7 million jobs, partly by sending 85,000 people to work abroad; and reducing its poverty rate to 11-12 percent from the current 15.5 percent, said the Overseas Labor Management Department under the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs.

    To this end, Vietnam is expanding its labor export market to the United States, Italy, Australia and the Middle East, while further tapping traditional ones in Asia.

    As of early last year, over 400,000 Vietnamese people were working in more than 40 countries and regions, generating combined annual income of around 1.6 billion U.S. dollars, the department said.