Dong Nai on fast track to new-style rural province status

Dong Nai (VNA) – Dong Nai is moving fast on the path to the new-style rural province status by 2020 when its six more communes have satisfied all the 19 countryside development criteria.

The southern province’s steering board for building new-style rural areas agreed on the communes’ recognition at a meeting on December 17.

Efforts to build modern countryside in the six communes, located in the districts of Cam My, Trang Bom and Vinh Cuu, have received the strong support of their residents, the steering board said.

Dong Nai has mobilised all resources and encouraged the public’s assistance for the work since the national target programme on building new-style rural areas was initiated by the Government in 2010. Seventy-eight out of the 171 communes in the province have met all 19 criteria.

In early 2015, Xuan Loc district and Long Khanh township were recognised by the Government as the first new-style rural districts in Vietnam. Thong Nhat district also received the Government’s recognition in November this year.

These districts are embarking on the advanced criteria, which are set by Dong Nai itself and also the only advanced requirements so far nationwide.

From now to January 2016, the province aims at another 10 communes fulfilling the 19 criteria, bringing the number of such communes to 88.

Dong Nai expects Long Thanh and Nhon Trach will become new-style rural districts by the end of this year, and it will transform into a new-style rural province by 2020.

The national target programme’s criteria cover infrastructure, production, living standards, income and culture, among others, aiming to boost rural regions in Vietnam. A district must have at least 75 percent of its communes meeting all the 19 criteria in order to receive the title of new rural district.

As many as 1,300 communes were recognised as satisfying the criteria, or 14.5 percent of the total, as of November 2015, according to a report delivered by Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat at a Hanoi conference on December 8.

At the district level, 11 were accorded the status, including those in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Quang Ninh, Nam Dinh, Lam Dong, Dong Nai and Hau Giang.

Vietnam aims to have 50 percent of all communes nationwide meet all the requirements by the end of 2020.-VNA