The decline occurred in both rural and urban areas: the rural poverty rate fell from 94 to 26 per cent and the urban poverty rate fell from 45 to less than 2 per cent during this period. They have been able to capitalize effectively on the opportunities offered by strong growth to significantly reduce extreme poverty. Indeed, the big three success stories—China, Indonesia and Viet Nam—together account for an absolute drop in the numbers of the extreme poor of 718 million.