Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has asked the Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang to focus resources on reducing poverty among the ethnic groups by facilitating their farming and production.

At a working session with the province’s leaders in Hanoi on June 20, PM Dung suggested the locality combine agricultural restructuring with the building of new-style rural areas, and pay more attention to the application of science and technology in agriculture in order to achieve higher productivity.

The locality was also urged to roll out suitable investment policies for rural areas while developing the processing industry for agricultural and aquatic products.

In the first half of this year, Soc Trang province, home to the largest number of Khmer ethnic minority people in the Mekong Delta, has recorded active socio-economic development, with an economic growth of 11.9 percent.

The province has implemented 163 large-scale rice fields with the participation of nearly 15,000 households.

In the period, its aquatic product output reached 49,000 tonnes, equivalent to 23 percent of the set target, while the rice yield totalled 1.5 million tonnes and industrial production value amounted to nearly 4.3 trillion VND (202 million USD).

However, the rate of poor households remains high, standing at nearly 17 percent.-VNA