National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung has described the development of agriculture and rural areas as an initial step in the process of industrialisation and modernisation.

The top legislator was speaking at a conference in Hanoi on December 25 to review the five-year implementation of the Resolution on agriculture, farmers and rural areas set at the seventh meeting of the Communist Party of Vietnam’s Central Committee (10 th tenure).

He affirmed the Party and State’s resolve to continue fulfilling goals stated in the resolution whose highest objective is to raise awareness of the role played by agriculture, farmers and rural areas in national development.

The NA Chairman underlined the need to extract advantages in natural and human resources, plus strength of localities in combination with scientific and technological application in order to effectively implement the resolution.

The building of agriculture, farmers and rural areas is the task set out for the whole political system, especially political and social organisations and the Vietnam Fatherland Front, he said.

President of the Vietnam Farmers’ Association Nguyen Quoc Cuong pointed to a range of bottlenecks in agricultural production, saying that investment attraction moves slowly, competitiveness remains low and scientific and technological application falls short of expectation.

Other opinions called for more comprehensive measures to spur agriculture and rural development in a more feasible and sustainable manner, focusing on the renovation of credit policies in a bid to lure more investment in this field.

They also suggested the State offer more incentives to attract high-quality human resources, scientists and technicians to rural areas.-VNA