Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has approved a project to develop information and telecoms services in rural areas from now until 2020, with an estimated funding of over 24 trillion VND (1.2 billion USD).

Under the project, all remote and extremely disadvantaged communes will have public post and telecoms services points by 2020, while internet subscriptions in rural areas will be raised to 30-40 percent of the country’s average.

All communes in the lowland areas and midland regions and most of those in mountainous areas will be provided with the Nhan Dan (People’s) newspaper and newspapers published by their local Party organisations.

The project also aims to ensure that most rural households get access to radio and TV programmes, while State agencies from district level upwards will have information portals or websites.

Party bodies and administrations from central to communal levels will also have public telephones and e-mail boxes to receive and answer questions raised by the public./.