If $2 per day (2005 PPP) is used as a benchmark, the number of poor in the Asian and Pacific region decreased from 2.4 billion in 1990 to an estimated 1.6 billion in 2011. About 900 million people living between $1.25 and $2 per day remain critically vulnerable to extreme poverty. At present, estimates show that about 40 per cent of the population of the region lives on less than $2 per day.