The capital city of Hanoi has spent over 17.1 trillion VND (roughly 1.1 billion USD) building new-style rural areas in the locality, according to the municipal People’s Committee.

Of the sum, 13.4 trillion VND was sourced from the budget of the city, districts and communes and 3.65 trillion VND mobilised from society.

The programme’s criteria on transport were fulfilled by 140 communes, while 103 communes completed irrigation requirements, 355 communes finished electricity criteria, and 350 others successfully set up post offices systems.

The building of new-style rural areas nationwide has recently been asked to speed up.

In his recent Directive 18/CT-TTg on the issue, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung clarified that localities should allocate an adequate amount of budget for the programme. They are also banned from requiring local people make compulsory contributions to the programme.

The national target programme on new-style rural area building, which was launched in 2010, has set 19 national criteria for new rural areas, which cover building infrastructure, improving production capacity, building public works, protecting landscape and environment, and promote local traditions and cultural identities.

So far, 185 communes nationwide have achieved all 19 criteria for new rural areas and nearly 600 others have met between 15-18 criteria. On average, each commune has fulfilled 8.47 criteria compared to 4.7 in 2011.-VNA