Northeast Cao Bang province has recently carried out a number of socio-economic programmes and projects in a bid to reduce poverty and boost local economic development.

Their efforts include implementing the national target programme on poverty reduction; the socio-economic development programme for underprivileged communes in mountainous, remote and isolated areas (phase 2 of the Programme 135); and the programme for rapid and sustainable poverty reduction in the 62 poorest districts, (Programme 30A).

The locality has also provided direct financial and housing assistance to local poor households for settlement and production development.

In 2014, nearly 400 impoverished households were provided new homes worth a total of 8.3 billion VND (388,000 USD). Another 130,000 individuals were provided with preferential loans totalling 12.7 billion VND (593,000 USD) to stimulate economic development.

Nearly 10,000 targeted households have also received production-aided financial packages of 40 million VND (1,870 USD) on average from the Social Policy Bank.

Others projects on job creation, income increase, vocational training and labour export have also been carried out, benefiting tens of thousands of individuals and bringing the urban unemployment rate to below 5 percent and the rate of labourers with vocational training to 24.5 percent.

The province has assigned specific targets on poverty reduction and economic development to localities while enhancing information access in a bid to bring the local impoverished household rate to 16.05 percent in 2015 from 20.05 percent, said Ha Minh Tran, Director of the provincial Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.

The province has strengthened the involvement of various resources in localities and the implementation of the grassroots projects to ensure long-term sustainability and effectiveness of the projects and programmes on poverty reduction.-VNA