Thai Nguyen: Over 1 trillion VND for new-style rural area building hinh anh 1Illustrative image (Source: VNA)
The northern mountainous province of Thai Nguyen has allocated over 1 trillion VND (46 million USD) from the State budget so far this year for its new-style rural area building.

Of the sum, 100 billion VND (4.58 million USD) comes from Government bonds and 226 billion VND (10.36 million USD) has been sourced from the provincial coffers.

Thai Nguyen is striving to have 42 communes, or 29.4 percent of its communes, fulfil the new-style rural area criteria this year.

Hoang Cuong Quoc, Head of the provincial Coordination Office for the new-style rural area building programme, said the implementation has involved the participation of agencies, localities, local residents and businesses.

The province has also mobilised different resources for the programme, he said, adding that capital from credit institutions, enterprises and the community worth over 6.4 trillion VND (293.3 million USD) has been rallied over the past three years.

This year, 81 communes in difficult circumstances will receive double funding. Capital sourced from Government bonds will be prioritised for building headquarters of communal People’s Committees.

According to the steering board of the provincial new-style rural area building programme, Thai Nguyen will integrate programmes and projects in the locality from 2015-2016 to bring their effectiveness into full play with special heed paid to production activities.

The province will also focus on building brand names for local products to raise their competitiveness, expanding large-scale production facilities and trade promotion.

Thai Nguyen has also suggested disbursing the Government’s aid package worth 15 trillion VND (687.5 million USD) for new-style rural area building and increasing investments in agricultural production models.

The national target programme on building new-style rural areas, initiated by the Vietnamese Government in 2010, includes 19 criteria on socio-economic development, politics and defence, with the objective of boosting Vietnam’s rural regions.

The criteria include infrastructure development, production capacity improvement, environmental protection and cultural value promotion.

The country aims for 20 percent of all communes nationwide to fulfil the requirements by the end of 2015, reaching 50 percent by 2020.-VNA