Ho Chi Minh City needs over 9.7 trillion VND (460 million USD) this year to invest in 50 suburban communes aiming to become new-style rural areas.

Over 51 percent of the sum will be sourced from the city budget with a view to helping 17 communes meet the 19 national criteria for effective rural communities. The remaining are expected to meet 15 criteria, heard a recent conference in Ho Chi Minh City to review its 2013 rural development.

Four years since the target programme on new rural development was launched, the city has seen 56 communes from the districts of Cu Chi, Can Gio, Hoc Mon, Binh Chanh and Nha Be join the effort, with six of them now meeting all the criteria.

As of January 2014, its total investment for the cause hit about 12.3 trillion VND (585 million USD) which was spent on 1,500 new buildings, the upgrade of over 730 dilapidated houses and an increase in production and trading.

The rate of poor households with an annual per-capita income of 12 million VND (570 USD) was brought down from 5.77 percent in 2010 to 1.15 percent in 2013. More than 86 percent of impoverished families in six model communes have escaped poverty.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development and head of the Central Steering Committee for the target programme Tran Thanh Nam asked the city to reform production using technological innovations, which has proved very successful elsewhere.

On the occasion, many municipal units signed an agreement to help five districts become new rural areas.-VNA