Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung has described the 2009 census on population and housing as a valuable document for the development masterplan of the next 10 years.

Hung chaired a conference in Hanoi on July 21 to release the census, saying the census showed satisfactory results in major target areas.

With the workforce outnumbering dependants, Vietnam is now at the point of golden population, which offers a big opportunity for human resource development in service of socio-economic development, he pointed out.

“The golden population period also poses a number of challenges that demand good policies on education and training, social welfare for the elderly, employment, human resource development, economic development and family planning.

“A constant decrease in population growth rates over the past ten years and an increase in human longevity revealed an encouraging result. Population problems remain with a high gap in gender of newborns at the rate of 110.5 boys per 100 girls that asks for firm measures in the first place,” emphasised the Deputy PM.

Hung lauded the educational sector for its success in substantially reducing illiteracy during the past decade.

Problems remain in emerging from low literacy rates in the mountains and Central Highlands and an increase in drop-outs at higher education levels, leading to a failure in meeting targets for trained labour in the interest of industrialisation and modernisation.

The number of large houses of 60 sq.m. and upwards doubled in the past 10 years, showing a big success, he recognised. However the number of ramshackle houses in rural areas accounts for 89 percent of the national total of similar houses, calling for better planning in the housing development strategy in the next ten years with better investments for the countryside.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment, the General Statistics Office and relevant agencies should focus on analysing and evaluating the census and making predictions for the 2011-20 stategy, Hung concluded./.