The southern province of Bac Lieu has seen significant achievements in building new rural development through focusing on vocational training for rural labourers.

The initiative was praised as one of the key benchmarks towards carrying out the 19 criteria for new-style rural development.

According to Deputy Chief of the provincial Steering Committee for the National Target Programme on New Rural Development, Luong Ngoc Lan, improving rural incomes remains the most crucial task.

Funds for constructing new style rural areas were mobilised from community contributions as State funding remains limited, necessitating more proactive involvement from localities, he added.

Over the past two years, the province has provided over 440 vocational training courses and 750 technical training classes, as well as new manufacturing model transfer classes for rural labourers, attracting more than 23,300 participants.

The efforts have helped generate increased income and create jobs for rural labourers; in the first two months of 2015, the province employed 784 labourers.

So far, nearly 30 manufacturing models are believed to have generated sustainable increased incomes for rural labourers, such as safe vegetable planting, mushroom planting, and aquaculture farms following good agricultural practices (GAP).

In 2014, the rate of impoverished households in Chau Thoi commune in Vinh Loi district, one of the province’s two model communes in new rural development, was reduced to 10 percent from 20.77 percent in 2010.

The National Target Programme on New Rural Development, launched in 2010, sets 19 criteria for new-style rural areas, covering infrastructure, production, living standards, income and culture, among others.-VNA