Bac Giang: over 9.7 mln USD for new-style rural building

Bac Giang (VNA) – The northern province of Bac Giang plans to invest 220 billion VND (around 9.7 million USD) in implementing the national target programme on new-style rural area building in 2017.

The money will be allocated for 15 communes registered to finish the programme and 80 others registered to join the scheme.

This year, the province will pay attention to developing infrastructure facilities for transport, irrigation and waste treatment, and promoting application of advanced technology in production in order to increase locals’ incomes.

It aims to increase the number and quality of criteria completed by communes and strives to fulfill more criteria in the coming time. All the communes of Bac Giang city are expected to be recognised as new-style rural areas this year.

To realised the goals, the local authorities will intensify campaigns to raise awareness of the work as well as expand creative methods and successful models in the field.

Bac Giang has so far had 49 communes getting the new-style rural area status, with the average number of completed criteria being 13.2.

Since 2016, the locality has spent hundreds of billion VND on the programme, focusing on implementing 186 agricultural production models such as cultivating fruit trees, high-quality rice and flower, and breeding.

The set of criteria for a new-style rural commune in the 2016-2020 period covers 19 different fields with specific targets in planning, socio-economic infrastructure, economy and production, as well as culture, society and environment.

General and specific targets in each criterion are designed to suit particular regions: northern midland and mountainous, Red River delta, northern central, south central coastal, Central Highlands, south eastern and Mekong Delta regions.

The socio-economic infrastructure group comprises eight specific criteria for transportation, irrigation, electricity, school, cultural infrastructure, rural trade infrastructure, information and communications, and residential housing.

The economic and production organisation group includes four criteria on income, poor households, employed labourers, and production organisation, while the socio-cultural and environment group aims at objectives in education and training, health care, culture, environment and food safety, political system and law access, and defence and security.

A new-style rural commune must have asphalt or concrete roads to the district downtown allowing cars to travel in all seasons. Per-capita income of locals is at between 36-50 million VND depending on each region while the poor household rate is at 6 percent under the multidimensional poverty line.-VNA