Dong Nai province is leading southern localities in terms of meeting criteria on new rural area construction, said Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Tran Van Vinh.

The Vice Chairman said among 136 communes under the new rural area programme, 18 communes have achieved from 15 to 19 criteria, 62 others have met between 10 to 12 criteria and 49 have fulfilled from 5 to 9 criteria.

In particular, six communes have achieved all the 19 criteria, five of which are in Xuan Loc district and one in Long Khanh town, and nine others are expected to follow suit by the end of this year.

The province aims to have 34 communes fulfil all the requirements by 2015.

According to the official, Dong Nai province has allocated nearly 1,500 billion VND (71 million USD) to the new rural area building programme.

Of which, only 3 billion VND (142,180 USD) is from the State budget and the remaining fund will be mobilised from local budget and residents and other economic sectors.

However, communes in the province are slow in designing their rural area building plans. Only 38 communes have completed their construction plans and 46 have mapped out a project for their rural area building process./.