HCM City aims to complete new-style rural area building in 2020

HCM City (VNA) – Ho Chi Minh City is striving to complete the target of new-style rural building in the direction of developing hi-tech urban agricultural areas by December 31.

Accordingly, the city aims to have all the communes meeting advanced new-style rural criteria for the period of 2016 - 2020, and Can Gio and Binh Chanh districts recorgnised as new-style rural areas.

Half of its communes are expected to obtain model new-style rural area status in 2021 - 2025.

Permanent Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Le Thanh Liem said the city is working to effectively implement measures to mobilize resources and contributions from locals for the programme.

The building of new-style rural areas in HCM City focuses on planning and developing socio-economic infrastructure, organizing production, improving the cultural and spiritual life, protecting the environment, and ensuring social order and security.

The city has been accelerating investment in technical infrastructure development in five districts and 56 communes, towards developing a synchronous and connected infrastructure system serving production and daily life of local people.

It has also sped up agricultural restructuring in the period 2019 - 2025, focusing on building value chain; developing hi-tech agriculture associated with processing and consumption; developing and improving the efficiency of collective economy, especially agricultural cooperatives.

The city is implementing a project to improve the quality of new rural building criteria in 56 communes for the 2016 - 2020 period, and a scheme to build five suburban new-style rural districts.

By the beginning of 2020, each commune in HCM City averagely reached 18.66 out of 19 advanced criteria, up 3.26 criteria compared to the end of 2018. As many as 31 out of 56 communes were recognised as advanced new-style rural areas in 2019.

The national target programme on building new-style rural areas was initiated by the Government in 2010 with the aim of developing rural regions. The list of criteria includes the development of infrastructure, the improvement of production capacity, environmental protection, and the promotion of cultural values.

In the 2016-2020 period, under the programme, more than 5,170 communes, or 58.2 percent of total communes in the country, have met standards for new-style rural areas. Over 2,110 trillion VND (90.44 billion USD at current exchange rate) have been mobilized from all sources to implement the programme.

The country aims to have at least 80 percent of all communes recognised as new-style rural areas by 2025, and all the remaining communes should achieve at least 15 criteria.

Ho Chi Minh City is the largest city in Vietnam and the economic hub of the southern region. Accounting for 0.6 percent of Vietnam’s total land area and about 9 percent of the country’s population, it is part of the southern key economic zone, which also comprises Dong Nai, Ba Ria - Vung Tau, Binh Duong, Long An, Tay Ninh and Binh Phuoc provinces. In the southern economic hub, over 3,000 projects across all sectors are supported by foreign capital, while the number of registered enterprises has exceeded 100,000.

The southern economic hub has more than 74 recognised science and technology businesses out of around 200 nationwide. Ninety percent of enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City are micro- or small-sized enterprises and lack the financial and human resources for research and development.

The city has approved a science and technology market development programme, which targets increasing the value of science and technology products and services by 15 percent annually in the next five years and 20 percent in the case of key technologies./.