A seminar on the National Target Programme on Building New Rural Areas opened in the central province of Tuyen Quang on September 21.

The event was jointly organised by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and provincial authorities.

Addressing the event, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Nguyen Dang Khoa underlined that building new rural areas is of strategic importance in the national industrialisation and modernisation as over 70 percent of Vietnamese population live in rural areas and over 50 percent of labour force work in agriculture.

In addition to challenges, Khoa said that with the support of international organisations and Vietnam’s efforts, the face of new rural areas has changed after one year of implementation of the programme.

At the event, the delegates from six northeastern provinces focused on discussing planning issues for building new rural areas with the participation of locals, promoting training and information dissemination, and development of commodity agriculture based on market mechanisms as well as proposed policies for the northeastern region to speed up the programme’s progress./.