New rural construction in the Mekong Delta is a big undertaking to meet the expectations of the people, said a weekly magazine of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, adding that the movement has initially created a new look for rural areas.

However, the natural characteristics of the area with many rivers has posed many difficulties for the process of building new rural areas, said the Vietnam Business Forum.

At the preliminary conference on three years of implementation of national target programme on building new rural areas in the Mekong Delta region held by the Steering Committee of national target programme on building new rural areas in Hau Giang on 25th February, many creative ways of mobilising people and power to build new rural area were put forward.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in the past 3 years, the Mekong Delta has mobilised about 121,340 billion VND from different financial resources to build new rural areas. In particular, the budget capital, credit capital, corporate capital and community capital account for 31.2, 47.3, 4.3 and 17.2 percent, respectively.

Thereby, by the end of 2013, averagely, communes in the Mekong Delta reached 9.23 criteria, increasing by 3.19 compared to 2011 (8.36 criteria reached averagely, an increase of 3 criteria).

Compared to 2011, the provinces and cities in the Mekong Delta have increased criteria rate compared to that of the whole country (averagely more than 3 criteria); no communes fail to reach criteria of new rural area. This has shown the efforts of the committees, the governments and the people in the Mekong Delta despite difficult conditions.

However, there are still 62 communes reaching less than 5 criteria, which are located in the provinces of Tien Giang (39 communes), Ben Tre (7 communes), Ca Mau (10 communes), etc. This requires further efforts of the governments and people of these communes. Besides, the inspection and evaluation of performance of criteria in a number of localities has not been fully paid attention to, subjective and tends to chase movement.

Former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) Le Huy Ngo, mentor of the national target programme on building new rural areas noted that the construction of new rural area should focus on improving life of the people. When life of the people gets better, advocating for the remaining criteria will get easier.

Capital for infrastructure is the most difficult thing in the process of building new rural areas. According to calculation, averagely each commune needs investment rate of 300 billion VND to reach 19 criteria of new rural communes. Meanwhile, the current capital of 1 billion VND per commune is too little, said Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of Long An province Nguyen Thanh Nguyen.

The Mekong Delta is divided by many waterways and canals while the soil remains soft. Educational level is still low, while economic structure is still largely based on agriculture which is not highly effective. There is still lack of infrastructure, especially that of transport, irrigation, electricity and clean water. The life of a part of the population, especially ethnic minorities, remains low and is frequently affected by floods. Those are the impacts which are slowing the progress in implementing the building of new rural area in the Mekong Delta.

There were proposals that there should be distinguished criteria for building new rural area in the Mekong Delta. There are also comments warning that criteria for building new rural area shouldn’t be pursued rigidly. It was important to understand that the construction of new rural area is changing the lives of the people in the direction of shortening the gap between rich and poor and creating conditions for people in the countryside to enjoy the life.

"People know, people discuss, people contribute, so that the construction of new rural area will be more efficient," said Pham Van Quynh, Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Can Tho city. The fact is that the construction of new rural area will get high quality and save more if local people join.

Tran Hoang Duyen, District Party Committee Secretary of Phuong Long, Bac Lieu province shared that people are quite indifferent to works managed by contractor only. When local people get involved in the construction as a partner, they would enthusiastically contribute their thoughts and human capital to the work. For example, a project on the construction of rural roads, if managed by contractor only, is estimated to cost 26 billion VND but will only cost 13 billion VND if the people and officials of those localities take part in. Besides, the quality of construction is very high.

"I wish new rural areas in the Mekong Delta could get high competitiveness," said Le Huy Ngo, former Minister of MARD. In fact, a lot of localities are still trying to figure out ways to increase income for people in the context of limited agricultural output and fragmented production models. Therefore, restructuring agricultural labour in rural areas is vital to increase people’s participation in building new rural areas.

Many suggested that the criteria be divided into "hard" and "soft" in the process of building new rural area. However, former Minister of MARD Le Huy Ngo said that this should be carefully taken into consideration: "Any criterion has to meet the satisfaction of people. The satisfaction level of the people should be considered a measure for the process of building new rural areas."

According to Le Huy Ngo, in the process of building new rural areas, the characteristics of the Mekong Delta people, who are spontaneous, generous, close to nature and willing to share with the community, should be noted.

According to the MARD, the Mekong Delta has so far 18 communes which reach 19 criteria, equivalent to 1.4 percent (1.2 percent in the whole country), the number of communes which reach 15-18 criteria is 4.7 percent (5.7 percent in the whole country), the number of communes which reach 10-14 criteria was 36 percent (28.9 percent in the whole country), the number of communes which reach 5-9 criteria is 53 percent (47.2 percent in the whole country), the number of communes achieving less than 5 criteria is 62, equivalent to 4.9 percent (17.3 percent in the whole country) .

Addressing the conclusion of the conference, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat emphasised: "The most important thing is to gain the trust of the people. The golden principle is democracy, openness and transparency in the process of building new rural areas. Localities have to be dynamic, creative and have appropriate steps and take satisfaction of the people as a measure in the process of building new rural areas.”-VNA